Time Travellers in Essendon, Flemington and the Keilor Plains
Businesses-Essendon
Mrs Harriet Maria Harding, Premier Tea Rooms
Mt Alexander Rd, Essendon, circa 1930
Courtesy of Public Record Office Victoria, VPRS 12800 P3 ADV 0825.
The current number is 914 Mt Alexander Rd, Essendon.
This shop was a little hard to identify, but with what appeared to be a saddle in the window of the shop to the right, and the beginning of a word 'SAD' at the bottom of the next door window, I went looking for a saddler's shop next door to a confectionery shop. On the left side of the confectionery shop is a shop advertising Medicated Soap, Weights (possibly scales), and cigarettes. This combination of shops appeared in Mt Alexander Rd, in the 1925 Sands & McDougall Directory:
A L Hooper, saddler, Mrs H M Harding, confectioner, and J S B Petherick, tobacconist and hairdresser. The street numbers put the shops in the vicinity of Fletcher St.
This section of an MMBW map is Mt Alexander Rd, with Fletcher St unseen on the left, and Willow St
unseen on the right. North is to the left.
In the window of the confectionery shop is an indistinct painted sign, saying "The Premier Tea Rooms". The store stocked Wrigley's Spearmint Chewing Sweet, Pascall Sweets, Fry's Chocolate and Cadbury's Chocolate. It must have been a great relief to Wrigleys when someone came up with the notion of replacing "Chewing Sweet" with "Gum".
Harriet Maria M Harding is listed in the Electoral Rolls at 780 Mt Alexander Rd, Essendon, confectioner, from 1924 to 1928, and from 1931 to 1934 at 918 Mt Alexander Rd, Essendon. This appears to be the same address as before, renumbered. The numbers in the MMBW extract above may not have been in the same spot by the 1920s, but they were between Willow St and Fletcher St. In the 1935 Sands & McDougall Directory, the shop which was previously a confectionary shop was vacant.
Thanks to some clever work by Alex Bragiola, we now know that Mrs Hardings shop is the current 914 Mt Alexander Rd, Essendon, and still standing.
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