The St Kilda Botanical Gardens, also known as the Blessington Street Gardens, were once graced with a lily pond. This had been completed in August 1913. (1) Adjacent to the pond is a drinking fountain, faced with bluestone. Historian, Patricia Convery, noted that the lily pond was dis-established in 1930, after a child drowned in it, and finally demolished in 1945. The death of the child is unverified. (2) However, generations of oral transmission by local council gardeners posited the drowning death of a child in the pond as the precursor to its demise, which for the most part is supported by this divergent version of chronology is evidenced by The Herald of 11 December 1941 where the body of a baby, apparently murdered, was found in a fishpond in the Gardens (3). The fountain remains in a neglected condition.
Lily pond, St Kilda Botanical Gardens
St Kilda Historical collection
St Kilda is also the home to another neglected bluestone drinking fountain, by Pier Road near to the Cowderoy Street Drain outlet. A photograph taken just over a year ago, shows it blocked and full of stagnant water and rubbish.
One of the issues with public infrastructure which is neglected by local councils or government departments, is that it encourages vandalism, and the attitude that these historic structures do not matter. We are unlikely to see the Blessington Street Gardens lily pond re-established, but couldn't the 110 year old drinking fountain and its Pier Road companion, be restored to working order?
Pier Road neglected drinking fountain, July 2022
Image: © VanishedVictoria
Pier Road neglected drinking fountain, July 2022
Image: © VanishedVictoria
Acknowledgement
This posting was inspired by local gardener, Vu :
Footnotes
(1) Prahran Telegraph, August 9, 1913,
here.
(2) St Kilda Botanical Gardens: a social snapshot of its first hundred years by Patricia Convery
(St Kilda Botanical Gardens, 2014)
(3)
The Herald, December 11, 1941,
here.
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