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by | 3 Dec, 2015

Return to Collingwood Hotel Listing

Hotel:Criterion Hotel

Hotel ID No24
Hotel Address:

115-117 [formerly 103] Johnston Street, Collingwood
Collingwood 3066
Australia
Map It

Suburb:

Collingwood

Most Recent Name:

Criterion Hotel (1912 - 1914)

Previous Name(s):

Galloway Arms (1854 - 1911)

When Built/Licenced:

18541914

Status of Building:

Restaurant (115); charity office (117)

Rebuilt/Altered:

1888

Heritage Victoria Register:

N/A

National Trust Register:

N/A

Collingwood Conservation Study 1989 & 1995:

N/A

City of Yarra Heritage Review 1998:

Volume 3, p. 93, mention in description of HO315 Johnston Street Precinct

City of Yarra Review of Heritage Overlay Areas, 2007 & Heritage Database:

Individually significant within HO 324

Maps:

Kearney 1855: N; Hodgkinson 1858: N ; MMBW: Detail Plan 1197 & 1198, 1899

Comments:

The original hotel was a wooden structure, charmingly depicted by watercolourist Henry Gritten at the time when Abraham Howgate was the licensee after very brief stints by Robert McDuff and Frederick Poole. James Page, a man active in local affairs and elected to council in the 1860s, bought the hotel around 1860, and held the publican's licence for many years. He retained ownership until his death in 1910. In 1888 the timber hotel was demolished and it was re-built in two-storeyed Italianate style. while the hotel name is centred on the pediment, the structure in fact comprised two properties, the hotel on the west side (now number 117) and an eight-roomed house on the east side (now number 115), which became the new home of the Pages from around 1891.

At the Licenses Reduction Board sittings in March 1908, James Page and licensee Mrs Rosetta McCully appeared. Page reported that the hotel had been rebuilt to meet the requirements of the Licensing inspector in 1888. Police reported that the house was well built and well conducted under the present licensee, though it had not been so under previous licensees. Mrs McCully stated she had taken over in August 1907:

There was a rough class of customers at the place then but she cleared them out, refurnished the place, and made a new start. The trade was steadily growing, and the customers were all of a very respectable class.

The Argus, 7 March 1908, p. 2

The hotel was allowed to continue trading but in April 1914 the Licenses Reduction Board handed down a decision that it was one of the hotels in excess in the Darling Ward. The upper floor exterior of the building is substantially intact although the windows of 115 have been altered; the name and construction date can be seen on the pediment in raised letters. The ground floor has been completely altered for subsequent offices and shops on the premises.