Curtain Square, also known as Curtain’s Square, was named in honour of John Curtain, a Melbourne City Councillor and Member of Parliament who was instrumental in having the land reserved for ornamental and recreational purposes in May 1876. The square occupies 1.46 hectares of the area bounded by Rathdowne, Curtain, Canning and Newry Streets. The land was originally a bluestone quarry worked by convicts from the Collingwood Stockade from 1853 to 1866. The old quarry holes were filled in and the area was planted with a variety of trees and shrubs. The legacy of this infill material was noted years later in the Curtain Square Masterplan of 1992. Cracks in the walls of buildings, constructed in the 1930s and 1940s, were attributed to subsidence on the former quarry site, as was the tilt of the elm trees in the vicinity. The buildings, a "men's shelter" and a toilet block, were demolished in the 1990s. In September 2017 sixteen elm trees, some estimated at 100 years old, were removed from the north/south avenue and replaced with scarlet oaks, due to their poor condition and public safety concerns. The avenue of Moreton Bay fig trees remains at the Canning Street entrance.
by cchg on Sept. 16, 2018Please login to comment on this item