Built/licensed: 1853, licensed in 1857.

Location: 554 Burke Road, Camberwell.

Delicensed: 1920 after Local Option Poll.

Status of building: Demolished

Other names: Camberwell Hotel.

Heritage Reviews / Conservation studies: City of Boroondara - Thematic Environmental History (March 2012) pp. 13, 47, 106, 109, 110, 153, 199, 223.

City of Boroondara - Camberwell Conservation Study (1991) Volume 2, pp. 70, 71, 74, 103

National Trust Register: B7266

MMBW Maps: Detail plan 1546, 1903; Detail plan 1851, 1904, Detail plan 1844, 1904; Detail plan 1852; 1904.

Comments: In 1853, George Eastaway bought land on the north-east corner of the junction, and built a hotel of corrugated iron, with three sitting rooms which were often used for local meetings and four bedrooms which were largely used by his family.. He named it the Camberwell Inn, as the junction reminded him of the roads that converged at Camberwell Green in London. The inn became the meeting place of the district, and, after dark, a lamp in Eastaway's doorway was a beacon to carters travelling to Melbourne in the early hours of the morning. Soon, a blacksmith set up a forge nearby, another store was built, and a settlement was established, adopting the name of the inn.

Camberwell Hotel in the 1890s.

The inn was eventually known as the Camberwell Hotel. In 1861, the Camberwell road board was established there, and Eastaway offered the usage of a free meeting room for ten years. It was also a regular meeting place for the Ancient Order of Foresters. Eastaway eventually sailed back the England in 1867, and the hotel was run and remodelled by other licensees, until it was purchased by Annie Dillon in 1912. When it was closed as a result of the Local Option Poll of 1920, it was remodelled as a commercial premises, and eventually demolished with the Dillons Building constructed on its site.

Licensees:

1857/61 - George Eastaway (listed as Eastway)

1862 - James Bulley

1863 - George Eastaway

Feb 1867 - George Eastaway (listed as Eastway)

1867/76 - James Gazzard

1876 - Elizabeth Gazzard

1877 - George Withers

1882/84 - Patrick Meheron

1885 - James B. Gill

1886 - Abraham Levy

1887/91 - Edwin Clogg (listed as E Glogg)

1893 - Ellen Clogg (listed as E Clogg)

1906 - Robert Thurling

1908 - Emily Wright

1910 - William Ramsay

1911 - Mabel Plant

1912 - Annie Dillon