Taken perhaps between 1906 - 1920, this photo shows that turn-of-the-twentieth-century lunchtime traffic along Hoddle Street is not what it is today! This photo is taken from almost the same place in Hoddle Street as the photo on the previous history page.

Looking south, it clearly shows on the left St Philip's church, the "Iron Pot" (with the square tower), which was the Sunday School and hall. It shows the Town Hall, and shops in the distance. There is what appears to be a tennis court next to the Sunday School. It is on this land that the proposed new worship centre will be built.

On the right is G. D. McLaughlin's Town Hall Hotel (formerly the Victoria Hotel) and neighbouring shops. On of these, on the corner of Vere Street and Hoddle St, was Edward Bice's "Family Grocer". His memorial stone was in the old St Philip's depicted in this picture and, after many years being stored outside the rectory exposed to the weather, will be restored to its rightful place inside the new worship centre.

Several horse-drawn wagons and carriages proceed along the street which is lined with telegraph posts and there are pedestrians on both footpaths. One boy marches boldly along the street! Ironically, you could still do that today—so long as you did it in almost exactly the same place as this boy—if you did so you would be walking along what is now the median strip between the southbound and northbound lanes of the second-busiest road in Melbourne!