The Village Belle, one of the oldest continuously operating hotels in St Kilda, is so embedded in the history of St Kilda that the area around it – Acland and Barkly Streets – became known as the Village Belle precinct.
A hotel by that name has traded from this site since the 1850s and has operated from the current building for 130 of those years.
The hotel was constructed by Edward Peel in 1854 initially as a modest single-storey structure with two or three rooms. In 1855 a licence was granted to Edward Stead to begin its life as a hotel. In 1876 architect John Vardy designed a new veranda.
The Village Belle’s central location meant it was a popular hotel from the start, catering to a growing suburb. Just a year before it opened St Kilda’s first police station was built and a “police court” was established in 1857. In 1859 the Council commissioned the building of 28 gas streetlamps, and in 1859 the St Kilda Gardens in Blessington Street were built.
In 1853 a bush racecourse was running on the site of the present-day Peanut Farm oval. Here the St Kilda Cup horse race was held, and boxing matches were also staged. The Village Belle was reportedly used by “colourful racing identities” as a meeting place to plan their covert activities.
The Village Belle was, in so many ways, an intersection of comings and goings, for a while quite literally. From J.B. Cooper, in his ‘The History of St Kilda 1840-1930’, (published in 1931) we know that the hotel was a tramway terminus. “In 1873, ‘Gunn’s Railway Cars’ ran from St. Kilda railway station for the Village Belle Hotel, via Grey Street, on the arrival of each train, and vice versa. Gunn’s cars also left the St. Kilda railway for the baths, and the Esplanade, and vice versa. The fare was three pence each way at all hours. Gunn advertised that ‘sober and steady drivers may be relied upon’.”
St Kilda Historical Society’s book Pots, Punks and Punters tells us the hotel was a favourite among luminaries including the literary Dyson brothers – writer and poet Edward (1865-1931), cartoonists and artists Will (1880-1938) and Ambrose (1876-1913) as well as Australia’s most celebrated printmaker Lionel Lindsay (1874-1961).
By the late 1880s, St Kilda was booming. A growing cable car network attracted day trippers to St Kilda – to visit the beach or for walks along the Esplanade – and this influx of people prompted the Village Belle in 1891 to expand into the imposing structure it is today.
Architect William Pitt – one of the outstanding architects of Melbourne’s “boom” era who designed the Melbourne Stock Exchange – was responsible for the design.
By the 1890s St Kilda was increasingly known as a lively and colourful – in all meanings of the word – destination. In the 1920s SP bookies were refused entry into the building, so instead they operated at the nearby racetrack with speakers in the trees for punters to hear the race call. Regulars included local criminal Squizzy Taylor.
Three generations of members of the Telford family managed the hotel since 1945.
Today, the Village Belle is still a great place to gather, with 169 years of stories in its walls.
