Flinders Street station

You’ve probably recognized it by now, after all it’s the city’s most emblematic and most photographed landmark. So here you are, in front of Flinders Street station, Melbourne’s railway station. To be more precise, you are “under the clocks”, as the locals say, referring to the many clocks that have been indicating train departure times since 1860! It’s a classic Melburnian meeting spot, so next time you set up a rendezvous here, you know what to say: “Meet you under the clocks!”. In 1854, the first train line was installed, linking the new city to its port. Its Melbourne terminus was nothing but a simple wooden shed. The French Renaissance-style building we see today was completed in 1910, after 10 years of construction. Its upper floors can be rented out as stores or offices. The very top floor was specially designed for the Victorian Railway Company, which over time installed an amphitheatre, later converted into a popular ballroom in the 1950s and 60s. The hat store you see in the basement next to the main entrance has been there since forever! It’s been called City Hatter since 1933, and it’s here to stay! But the real stars of the show are definitely the clocks. The clocks have been here since the early days, on the makeshift stations built in the 19th century. Today they are automated, but back then someone had to manually change the time using a long pole. Can you imagine doing that a hundred times an hour? The city council suggested replacing them with digital clocks during maintenance work in 1983, but met with such an outcry that they reinstalled them within 24 hours! Melburnians really love the Flinders Street clocks, you see.