Roden Street | Melbourne Streets

Early records show residents began living in this street as early as the 1850s’.

Roden Street in West Melbourne is thought to have been named after an Irish Tory politician, Robert Jocelyn, 3rd Earl of Roden who was best remembered for his strong support for Protestant causes in the north of Ireland. Robert had been appointed Vice-Chamberlain of the Royal Household of the United Kingdom from 1812 to 1827

The street crosses King, Spencer and Adderley streets and ends at Railway Place near the train line between Southern Cross station and North Melbourne station.

An old map shows numbering on Roden Street began in the north at number one near the National Trust-classified West Melbourne State School that was built in 1875. Tens of thousands of children from North & West Melbourne attended that school over its lifetime. The building was designed by architects Leonard Terry and Percy Oakden. In 1992 the building and playgrounds were sold to the Salvation Army.

In 1874 at number two, opposite the school, T. Richardson & Co operated a boot factory that employed many locals. The site of that unique early Victorian building is now a five-storey block of flats.

In 1895 Roden Street contained 92 Victorian terraces and 22 detached triple-fronted dwellings, the state school, eight vacant blocks and iron and steel merchant Briscoe & Co on the northern corner of Roden and Adderley streets.

One of the gems sadly lost was Bayview Terrace, a group of three dwellings at numbers 14 to 20 Roden. Built and owned by contractor John Falvy, their image endures in a photograph in Maie Casey’s book, Early Melbourne architecture 1840-1888, where she states,

“There is an airy elegance about this design with the calm of the row of pedimented windows broken by the smooth ellips of the carriageway arch and the sweep of the light veranda roofs.”

Much else of Roden Street’s early heritage architecture has been lost. Two-thirds of the original Victorian-era buildings have been replaced by factories. It’s a pattern similar to the recent explosion of blocks of flats with no private backyards for people to relax and unwind in or grow their own produce.

If it were still standing, the last house at the street’s southern end would have been number 241. Once a fine late-Victorian, triple-fronted two-storey detached mansion, owned by Joseph Reed, it’s now a single-storey industrial storage shed.

From today’s viewpoint, 74 of the original 114 historic Victorian-era residential dwellings in Roden Street have been lost. However, 68 Roden, the old home of local school teacher and proud Irishman Peter Madden, has been saved and restored to its Victorian splendour. Viewers of the ABC’s Restoration Australia will know that heritage homes like number 68 Roden can be revitalised, regardless of their condition.

Such restoration of existing heritage housing stock in and around North and West Melbourne benefits residents and maintains the architectural continuity of the surrounding streetscape.

Source: North and West Melbourne News Summer edition 2021 “Roden Street’s history lost to industrial development” page 8, by Stephen Hatcher.

14 Roden Street

West Melbourne VIC 3003

Also known as Address Bay View Terrace