328 Dorcas Street, corner of Coote Street, South Melbourne
MEL: 2K A2
James O’ Brien
held the first license, in 1854, for the Queen’s Arms Hotel, a two-storey brick
building with eight rooms and bars. One of the earliest hotels in South Melbourne, it appears to have maintained all the
original door and window joinery.Its
use of attached cast-iron balconettes is an extremely
early example of use of cast iron in architecture in Melbourne and is likely to have been imported. The
proximity of the Emerald Hill Race Course to the Queen’s Arms Hotel lent itself
to some perceptive marketing by its owner John O’Brien. O’Brien owned and
occupied the property until 1877 when Patrick Mornane,
who was later involved with the Shannon and Shamrock Hotel in Bank Street became the owner of both the hotel and its
adjoining grocery shop, at that time occupied by grocer Bridget Burns. The
hotel was closed in 1883 and is now a private house.The National Trust at State Level registered
the former Queens Arms Hotel in December 1997.It is considered significant as both one of the first buildings erected
in Emerald Hill and one of the smallest purpose-built for a hotel, in light of
the more imposing and palatial efforts of the following years.
