A Market, a Gaol & 3 Gardens (Melbourne)

Yesterday, when I looked at the weather forecast for today it predicted rain all day. When I got up this morning I checked the forecast again. It said it was raining then, but would stop soon, and not start again until mid-afternoon. A look out my hotel room window confirmed it was right about the current weather, but the forecast? Who knew?

I decided to start the morning by visiting the Queen Victoria Market, an almost 20-minute walk from my hotel, and then play it by ear depending on the actual versus budgeted weather after that.

As it turned out, I also visited a gaol and three gardens, all just this morning.

Queen Victoria Market

If the Queen Victoria Market isn’t the largest public market I’ve ever been to, probably by far, that can only be because I’ve totally forgotten a larger one. But it’s hard to imagine that I’d forget anything that big, even with my challenged memory.

The Queen Victoria Market dedicates one decent-size building to just fish and meat vendors. Another, I think larger, building hosts cheesemongers, bakers, sellers of prepared foods, and a nuts vendor, along with a few deli meat vendors that spilled over from the meat and fish building.

You might have noticed that I didn’t mention fruits or vegetables. Those are sold in a huge area covered by corrugated metal affixed to the tops of sturdy vertical metal beams. The roof is not all corrugated metal, though. A narrow skylight runs the length of the structure. The sides of the structure are all open.

Did I mention it’s huge? It’s hard to believe that as many fruit and vegetable vendors as are there could all make a living at the market. And they sell pretty well every fruit and vegetable imaginable, and a couple I didn’t recognize and wouldn’t have been able to imagine until I saw them.

Also under this roof is a section that signage labelled “General Retail.” In practice, this means apparel, backpacks, handbags, and assorted knickknacks.

Despite the hugeness of the fruit and vegetable market, and the less big, but still not small general retail section, there was a section probably close to a quarter of the space under cover that was vacant and could have accommodated more merchants.

Throughout, the market bustled with shoppers and tourists.

Old Melbourne Gaol

Pretty much all that’s left of the Old Melbourne Gaol is one, single-aisle cellblock and some of what I think were the perimeter walls around the complex.

After paying an exorbitant sum ($30 AUD for ancient people like me; more if you’re younger) to enter the dimly lit old cell block, I walked along the single aisle and went inside the cells on two of the three floors, the doors of which were open. There is a third floor of cells, and the stairs to it weren’t blocked, but looking up through the atrium that runs between the two sides of the upper two levels, the cell doors appeared to be closed.

(I guess that, technically, the atrium makes the two upper floors double-aisled, with cells on only one side of their aisles. But never mind that. It’s irrelevant.)

In most of the cells, panels told the story of convicts who were executed in the gaol, a different convict presented in each cell. To be honest, I’m not sure that all of the convicts represented in the cells were executed. The panels in some of the cells don’t say specifically that they were, while others do.

But all of the cells had death masks that were made from the deceased convict, so I think it’s a good bet that if they made it onto a modern placard on the wall they were executed.

One convict was wrongfully executed, but that wasn’t proven until more than 80 years after his execution. Colin Campbell Ross was executed for murdering a 12-year-old girl. Many people thought he was innocent, including a couple of more recent researchers who, much to their surprise, found that the hairs used to convict Ross, hair found on his pillow and thought to be of the murdered girl, were still available in evidence storage. The researchers had the hairs tested at a modern police forensics lab. Testing found that the hairs couldn’t possibly have come from the murdered girl.

Ross was pardoned, but not until May of 2008. A fat lot of good that did him seeing as though he died in 1922.

Not all the cells had exhibits about convicts. One had panels that listed all of the executioners who worked at the Old Melbourne Gaol over the time it operated, although the last one was brought in from another state and his identity was not revealed. And the panels in some cells discussed the operation of the gaol, the punishments inflicted there, and some facts about the penal justice system at the time.

For example, I learned that before 1864 children could be locked up in the Old Melbourne Gaol either for committing crimes or for being neglected and destitute. Authorities thought that was a favour to the abandoned children. Some favour.

But that all changed in 1864. Then, in a burst of progressiveness, the Neglected and Criminal Children’s Act (1864) was passed. After that, children could only be locked up for committing crimes, not for being alone and destitute. Abandoned children were sent to social institutions instead.

But even for criminal children who could still be locked up, conditions became much more liberal at the gaol. Thanks to the Act, corporal punishment for boys (the signage didn’t say anything about girls) under 16 years of age could include only flogging by cane or birch. They couldn’t be whipped with a cat-o’-nine-tails until they turned 16.

(If you didn’t detect any sarcasm in “burst of progressiveness” and “much more liberal” in the two immediately preceding paragraphs, please reread them with a tone of the deepest sarcasm in the voice inside your head.)

Executions (by hanging) had been conducted at the gaol since its opening. The only debate at the time was whether they should be conducted in public or private. The morality of capital punishment itself wasn’t debated much then.

Initially, they performed hangings outside, in front of the assembled public. But the crowds grew so large, loud, and appreciative that the authorities decided this wasn’t appropriate, so they moved the hangings inside. Some members of the public complained loudly about being deprived of their entertainment. This goes to show that some people are very, very, very sick.

On the second floor of the cell block, at one end of the rows of cells on that level, there is a rope tied to a cross-beam near the ceiling, with a trap door in the floor below it. I didn’t see any signage, but I presume that’s where they performed the indoor hangings.

Capital punishment was abolished in the state of Victoria, of which Melbourne is the capital, in 1975. According to Wikipedia, Victoria was neither the first nor the last Australian state to do so. Queensland was the first in 1922. (Bravo, Queensland.) Western Australia didn’t abolish it until 1984. New South Wales had already abolished capital punishment for murder in 1955, but it didn’t abolish it for all crimes until 1985. Wikipedia didn’t tell me what those other crimes were that still qualified for executions between 1955 and 1985 in New South Wales.

In 2010, Australia’s Commonwealth Parliament passed a law forbidding any of Australia’s states or territories from re-instituting the death penalty. Yay, Australia.

Parliament Gardens

After visiting the Gaol, not only had the rain stayed away, but it started to clear a wee bit. I decided to take advantage of the far better-than-expected weather to try to wash away the gloom and despair of the gaol by taking in the beauty of some gardens.

Parliament Gardens is a small park that I visited primarily because it’s on the way to the bigger park I wanted to see, Fitzroy Gardens. I’m glad I passed through.

Parliament Gardens has a lawn area with a fountain in the centre of it. Flowering trees surround the central area. I don’t know what species of tree they are, but when I visited they blossomed richly with flowers that were the lavender-blue colour of lilac bushes. There are also some palm trees.

The fountain is a bit different from most fountains. A criss-cross of bars hangs roughly a standard building-storey’s height above the ground. Nozzles spray water down from that.

There was just one problem. Powerful wind gusts blew this morning. If you wanted to walk around the park, as I did, there was a portion where you couldn’t help but get lightly showered, as I did.

I didn’t post this until after my afternoon activities, so I can cheat and jump back in here to say that when I walked past the park again this afternoon, the fountain was off. I presume the winds had something to do with the decision to turn it off.

Fitzroy Gardens

The Fitzroy Gardens is a fairly big, fairly beautiful park. Melbourne seems to have a lot of big, beautiful parks. Fitzroy Gardens has large lawns, trees interspersed throughout the lawns, fountains, flowers, a small forested area, and a lovely pond.

There’s also a conservatory, a Faeries Tree, and Cook’s Cottage.

The conservatory is jam-packed with beautiful plants.

The Faeries Tree isn’t so much a tree as a tall, dead stump. (Stumps do tend to be dead, don’t they?)

On one side of the Faeries Tree, near the bottom of the tall stump, an artist, Ola Cohen, carved and painted myriad whimsical figures.

The inscription on a plaque at the Faeries Tree, dated May 23, 1932, quoted Cohen as saying that she, “carved a tree in Fitzroy Park for you and the faeries, but mostly for the faeries and those who believe in them.” Isn’t that ridiculous? Everyone knows Faeries can’t read English, so what’s the point of posting the inscription? The faeries will never know it’s for them.

Cook’s cottage was built by the parents of Captain James Cook, the famous British naval captain. It wasn’t built anywhere near Fitzroy Park, but rather in Great Ayton, North Yorkshire, England in 1755. It was moved all the way overseas to Fitzroy Park in 1933 and restored in 1978. Apparently, whether Captain Cook ever lived in the cottage is debatable. Um, OK. Why is it there and why should I go in?

I didn’t go in. It’s a small cottage. I can’t imagine what they could have inside to make me feel it was worth the $5.50 (AUD) charge. The small garden out back looked nice, but I saw much of it from outside and there are plenty of splendid gardens I can see for free here.

Treasury Gardens

The Treasury Gardens sits just across a street from one side of the much larger Fitzroy Gardens. It has flowers, trees and some small, nice ponds with small jet fountains.

I could say more, but I think I’ve exhausted my garden verbiage. Melbourne has a lot to talk about in that regard.

Lunch

After the Treasury Gardens, it was time for lunch. The wind gusts had grown stronger. Fortunately, I’m a bit on the heavy side. If I’d been any lighter I might have been blown away before I found somewhere to eat. Talk about catastrophes. If you’re going to be blown into oblivion it’s always nicer to do so after a good meal.

I found a pleasant cafe nearby where I had an enjoyable sandwich and an equally enjoyable espresso. Unasked, they brought me a free glass of sparkling water. They refilled it, again unasked, when I emptied it. Who could ask for anything more out of life?

I’ll post about my afternoon outings later. See you then.