The Upper Storey of a Victorian Shopfront - Murray Street, Colac

            Many things have changed along the busy Colac shopping strip that runs the length of Murray Street.  Shops have come and gone, and each time the shop front it inhabits is redecorated.  Yet if you look above a shop's awning, you will often find the original building's upper floors and parapets, still very much intact. 

This shop built of red brick with fine stonework has been built in Victorian Free Classical style, an architectural movement that was very popular between the mid and late Nineteenth Century.  The Victorian Free Classical architectural movement resulted as a reaction against the strict rules of two previous styles, the Greek and Roman Revival movements, which were very constricted.  The Victorian Free Classical style, as the name suggests, allowed architects more freedom when designing buildings, often combining complimentary elements from different periods.  The movement was used widely, from large city buildings to small domestic buildings, religious and domestic buildings alike.

Located approximately 150 kilometres to the south-west of Melbourne, past Geelong is the small Western District city of Colac.  The area was originally settled by Europeans in 1837 by pastoralist Hugh Murray.  A small community sprung up on the southern shore of a large lake amid the volcanic plains.  The community was proclaimed a town, Lake Colac, in 1848, named after the lake upon which it perches.  The post office opened in 1848 as Lake Colac and was renamed Colac in 1854 when the city changed its name.  The township grew over the years, its wealth generated by the booming grazing industries of the large estates of the Western District and the dairy industry that accompanied it.  Colac has a long high street shopping precinct, several churches, botanic gardens, a Masonic hall and a smattering of large properties within its boundaries, showing the conspicuous wealth of the city.  Today Colac is still a commercial centre for the agricultural district that surrounds it with a population of around 10,000 people.  Although not strictly a tourist town, Colac has many beautiful surviving historical buildings or interest, tree lined streets.  Colac is known as “the Gateway to the Otways” (a reference to the Otway Ranges and surrounding forest area that is located just to the south of the town).

Taken in: Australia / Victoria / Colac (show map)

Taken on: April 22, 2014

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Murray St

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Camera: Canon DIGITAL IXUS 80 IS, f/4.9, 1/800 sec, 18.6mm, ISO 80 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon DIGITAL IXUS 80 IS
Aperture:	f/4.9
Exposure Time:	0.001 sec (1/800)
Focal Length:	18.6mm
ISO:	80
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Auto, Did not fire
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Show full info

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