Town Hall Hotel,
formerly
Cosmopolitan Hotel 1868 -
137 Bank Street, corner Wilson Street, South Melbourne
MEL: 2K E2
Town Hall Hotel, 1981
Erasmus Irving
resided on the premises on the corner of Bank Street and Market Lane (now known as
Wilson Street) before having
the site licensed in 1868.He named it
the Cosmopolitan Hotel, however by 1881, was renamed the Town Hall Hotel by C
Harding, a name retained until today. World-renowned singer Sylvia Fisher
retained a family interest in the hotel even after joining London’s Covent Garden
Opera Company in 1949. Patrons in the past have included actor Bill Hunter,
music producer Ron Tudor and singer Brian Cadd.In the post-war period, the Town Hall was
considered a working class hotel but its current patrons view it as an
incredibly democratic venue where people from all walks of life can engage with
each other.An attempt to convert the
hotel to an upmarket venue in the 1980s was unsuccessful in that it alienated
its regulars, yet a return to its previous form, saw their large-scale return.
In the early 1990s, a mural painted to depict the hotel in the foreground and
Slovenia in the
background, celebrates the cultural origins of the publican and his new home!
