Former Dandenong Town Hall between 1890s and 2000s

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Dandenong Bowling Club, Princes Hwy, Dandenong.about late 1990s/early 2000s.

Established in 1882, the local Bowling Green was the collaboration of a few local gentlemen after a meeting had been held in the Mechanics' Institute in March of the same year to discuss the forming of a Bowling Club. They erected their first clubhouse at the creek end of the lawns in the shade of an Algerian Oak (still standing) in Dandenong Park. In the 1950s, the Dandenong Recreation Club put before the committee of enthusiasts, plans to establish a Bowling Green at its Herbert Street site.

The Dandenong Bowling Green was not originally expected to last for more than a season, with some even scorning the very idea of having it. However, some 132 years later when closure was finally looming, the Bowling Club continued to maintain the lawns with the same high care as the gentlemen of the day who had given of their own.

For a long part of the clubs' history, a Croquet Club stood alongside the Bowling Club. In recent times to meet public demands for local space near Dandenong CBD, the future design of Dandenong Park meant the closure of both clubs, the Stan Prior Sound Stage may also yet face removal.

Before its closure, Dandenong Bowling Club was most probably the oldest surviving sports club in the Greater Dandenong area, having celebrated their Centenary in 1992.


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Old Army Drill Hall, Princes Hwy, Dandenong, mid 2000s.

Dandenong Drill Hall, a timber-framed, corrugated iron clad building with iron roof and trusses built 1915-1916, was one of about forty timber and iron drill halls built in Victoria from 1912-1916. The building was comprised of a major hall space with a number of smaller rooms leading from the main hall including a kitchen, offices, storage room and mess rooms. The floors were of concrete in the hall with timber floors in the surrounding rooms. There were three small sheds at the rear of the hall and a large vehicle shed adjacent to the hall.

From as early as 1877 Dandenong had a volunteer corps, the Light Horse Troop and by 1888 The Victorian Rangers had a local unit at Dandenong of which eleven men served in Sth Africa in 1899. By 1913 the need for Dandenong to have a Drill Hall had become quite apparent as there were approx. 170 members of the different corps in training in the area. In July 1913 a Sergeant Manners MacFarlane advised in a memo the then Minister for Defense W.H. Irvine that suitable land could be excised from the Government reserve known as Dandenong Park. This purchase was gazetted on September 11th 1915, with the building being constructed and put to much needed use.

In 1938 substantial additions were made to the building including an Officers' Mess, Sergeants' Mess, Lecture room and a Cloak Room, followed by a private residence, a gun park and garages. All were much needed additions as Dandenong had recently become the headquarters of the new 52nd Battalion (the Gippsland Regiment) and required extra facilities, in particular mess facilities, for officers and other ranks, woo traveled long distances for functions, conferences, lectures and other activities. The hall was also used as a recruitment centre during WW1 and WW2.

In 1947 the hall was allocated to 5th Infantry Battalion as a depot for for the training of the Support Company, then in 1949 some minor alterations involving partitioning, new fireplaces and a Recreation room at the rear took place. In 1951 land adjacent to the Training Depot was acquired to garage 15 vehicles, then in 1957 the hall became the home of the 15th Field Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery, a 200 strong citizen military force unit.

The Drill Hall for the entirety of it's existence was an integral part of Dandenong and surrounds both for military and socially. From its earliest days it was used as the venue for monthly community dances and other activities, for many years it even had the Dandenong Baths next to it. In 1945 the Dandenong Community Youth Centre moved there after having previously called the Pavilion at the Showgrounds (next to the Market) home. Between 1948-1954 the Scottish Regiment was proud to also call the Drill Hall home.

In the early years the regular drills could be used by many for keeping track of the time. With the loss of the regular gun shots, people lost interest, increasingly people relied on their own time pieces, leaving the Drill Hall to fade into memory along with its local architectural significance as an example of the many timber and iron drill halls built between 1912-1916.

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Aerial views of Dandenong in 2003 and 2013.

What a difference 10 years can make when urban renewal take hold. With Dandenong Train Station in the bottom left corner, Lonsdale street running up the right side and Walker Street (George street after it passes Robinson Street) running across the top. Some dramatic changes have taken place.

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Composite Bridge, Lonsdale Street, Dandenong, 1904-2000s

Looking into Dandenong towards Foster street.

Over the years ‘the rapids of Dandenong’, so described once by the poet Adam Lindsay Gordon, have swept away more than one bridge in the area. The first bridge over Dandenong Creek was constructed in 1840. A flood swept this away ten years later and it was replaced.

The stone bridge, built in 1866, probably by Robert Huckson, lasted 52 years. Part of it was granite, quarried locally from the vicinity of Wedge and Power Streets.

This bridge was replaced in 1919 by a ferrous metal single-span bridge, with concrete deck, known as the ‘Peace Memorial Bridge’. It was designed by R. H. Woolcock, shire engineer,once described as ‘one of the best engineers in Victoria’. Part of the bridge still carries portion of the Princess Highway over the Dandenong Creek. Modern concrete bridges now span the local creeks at many points.


Courtesy of The Dandenong Journal

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Church Of Christ, 17 Robinson Street, Dandenong, in 2009 - Not long before demolition

The original Church of Christ building was constructed in 1904 and officially opened on 28 August after an 11 week construction period on the corner of Robinson and George Street (before George street was realigned to meet the end of Walker street in the early 2010s).
In early 1918 through voluntary labour the Sunday School hall was added to the rear of the church, further working bees resulted in the lining of the hall and construction of the kitchen.

In September 1957 a newly built brick chapel on the corner of Mason and Walker Streets was completed (Presently occupied by Cornerstone Contact Centre since 1992), The church moved in 1990 to new premises at 139 David Street, outside the CBD area, ending its involvement in the centre of Dandenong.
The 1904 church building pictured was occupied by the Dandenong Assembly of God until 1977 when it was sold to the United Pentecostal Fellowship. It later became occupied by the Church of the Word. The building would survive into the 21st century before being demolished as part of the Revitalization of Dandenong, Presently the new A.T.O. building occupies this site.

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