Streets Beneath Our Feet
What makes an ordinary place special?
How can we look past the mundane, to find magic down suburban streets?
Streets Beneath Our Feet is a series of books that takes you around neighbourhoods, both familiar and unknown, in ways you might hardly have guessed. These streets are reimagined as places where generations have lived, worked and played.
What is it?
Written by urban historians Professor Robert Pascoe and Dr Chris McConville, each book guides walkers through local history, street by street. Drawing on oral histories, newspapers, police and court records, artworks and novels, the authors bring past residents vividly to life, the workers and migrants, larrikins and eccentrics, publicans, children and dreamers who shaped these streets.
Miss Stella Power, Australian singer and protege of the late Dame Nellie Melba
Richmond
Melbourne's formerly industrialised suburb of Richmond is a cluster of villages that historically began as a gentleman's retreat in the nineteenth century on Wurundjeri country, was taken over by working-class Irish, Greeks, Italians, Vietnamese and others in the twentieth, before becoming Silicon Yarra in the twenty-first.
The three walks are Richmond Hill, Cremorne, and Burnley (North Richmond is treated as part of the Abbotsford walk in our Collingwood book).
Join us to celebrate the Richmond Launch!
The launch will be at the RHSV Drill Hall, 239 A'Beckett Street, Melbourne, at the William Street corner, on Wednesday 3 June, from 5:30 p.m.
Our book will be launched by Phil Cleary.
Our publisher, Anthony Cappello (Connor Court press) will also be joining us.
RSVP to us (robert.pascoe@kadisha.com.au) or to Henry Shand (admin.officer@historyvictoria.org.au).
Photo of the RHSV Drill Hall on the corner of A'Beckett and William Street.
Praise for Richmond
‘...underpinned by prodigious research and abundant local knowledge.’
(Emeritus Professor Phillip Deery)
'Loved your book.’
(Phillipe Batters)
‘Your Richmond book is most enjoyable- some of your writing is quite
something, making the recreation of older suburbs really visceral. This a
clever project!’
(Geraldine Doogue)
‘I am impressed and grateful for the wide range of people and events that
you captured. I imagine the hardest part is trying to work out what to leave
out.’
(David Langdon)
‘How much work, care and passion has gone into bringing this story to life.‘
(Peggy O'Neal AO)
“Rob Pascoe and Chris McConville have penned a gem.’
(Janet McCalman AC)
Buildings, laneways, pubs, bridges and signage are not just parts of everyday streetscape; they are material clues to the lives, labours and pleasures of those who came before us.
This series reveals how ordinary suburban places can be read as rich historical events, full of hidden stories and unexpected magic.
Scan the QR code below to buy the Richmond book.
Pinnacle Hotel, formerly Fitzroy North Post office
Coming Soon
Fitzroy
Fitzroy photo of a "bottolo" on Moor street, supplied by Chris Lermanis, and photo of Marrowbone lane in the Liberties is taken by John Cooke, 1913.
Professor Robert Pascoe
Robert Pascoe is Dean Laureate and Professor Emeritus at Victoria University, Melbourne. The president, Royal Historical Society of Victoria, since 2025; and recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award, Australian Historical Association in 2025.
He has lectured in a range of urban planning, sociology and history subjects. Pascoe is the longest serving dean of any university faculty in Australia, having been the Dean of Humanities at Western Institute and
Foundation Dean of Arts at Victoria University from 1989 to 2005.
Dr Chris McConville
Chris McConville, based at Victoria University in Melbourne, is an international urban historian with particular expertise in Irish history and culture. He has had a long involvement in heritage conservation, especially around the Victorian goldfields. His most recent book is a history of Hanging Rock.
