The Pier: Lorne’s Once and Future King

On May 22 1877, – (Note: 1877) – ‘our own correspondent’ from the Geelong Advertiser wrote the following heavily edited piece:

“… we have had splendid rainfall – heavy showers through the night and light showers in the daytime. The temperature, though cool and comfortable, has been several degrees warmer than on the plains, and I believe that this locality [ie. Lorne] is well-suited for invalids through the winter months. Louttit Bay is nicely sheltered from all southerly and westerly winds with only a few days during the winter season when the wind blows from the east.”

“… as there are only a few visitors at the bay [again, Lorne] at present, masons, bricklayers, carpenters, builders, fencers and other labouring hands — building here, improving there — are in every way preparing for the next season’s influx of health and recreation seekers.”

“… with the probable influx of the hundreds who intend to visit Lorne next season, I am of the strong hope that the government will take steps to provide a substantial and commodious jetty from which passengers and cargo could be landed or embarked. Some may smile at the idea of a little seaport for Lorne, but for want of only £1,000, a jetty would provide for the timber trade, spud market, and passengers’ needs of Louttit Bay.” [Editor’s note: There was a thriving potato industry in the 1870s in the Otway hinterland. Subsequently, the potato industry moved from the nearby Lorne hills to centre on Beech Forrest and Gerangamete, where ‘the Otway Red’, a popular Australian potato with a smooth red skin and creamy white flesh, was developed by the Bone family].

‘Our correspondent’ concluded: “… there can be no reasonable doubt that the construction of the jetty is needed at the earliest date.”

He soon re-joined the battle to build a pier at Lorne when, on 17 September 1877, he wrote again on ‘The Subject of the Jetty’, saying:

“… regret is openly expressed that only half the amount of the sum promised towards the construction of the jetty has as yet been forthcoming but … [and here our correspondent hits a more optimistic note] … it is of no use to quarrel for I am certain that we shall soon have a good, substantial, commodious jetty to take steamers and sailing craft alongside. When that time arrives, the place will be recognised as the Port of Lorne, particularly if the Honourable The Commissioner
of Customs issues instructions to the Harbourmaster’s Department to provide extra moorings. They are much needed here, and the Chief Harbourmaster knows it.”

Our correspondent knew his stuff for in 1878, he wrote that “… Mr Anthony Kelly was contracted to build the first of three iterations of the Lorne Pier from blue gum piles and timbered decking cut from the local forest area. The length of the jetty when completed according to contract will be 300 feet seaward, x 12 feet in breadth, except at the outer head of it, which will be 5 or 6 feet wider, to allow for landing stairs for small craft at any time of the tide. In addition, there will be a tramway of 3 feet gauge laid down along the centre of the pier to within a few feet of the head.”

As an alert to GORCAPA, where in your Urban Design Framework [UDF] do you celebrate this early pier history?

Where do you celebrate the later evolution of the timber industry … indeed, are you even aware that the poppet heads and the mine shaft reinforcements in Ballarat and Bendigo were built from Lorne-shipped Otway Messmate and Mountain Ash, or that the ‘sidewalks’ that once edged the city streets of Melbourne, Geelong, Ballarat, and Bendigo used Otway timber?

Where will your ‘visitors’ to the Great Ocean Road learn that the burgeoning fish and chip outlets in our cities that fed post-WWII Victoria featured ‘couta’ caught by Lorne’s fishermen, ice-packed by Lorne’s local labour at Lorne’s Fish Co-Op—the very same building you seek to replace with a “kiosk”—and were trucked to Melbourne by Lorne’s drivers for same-day sale at the West Melbourne Fish Market in Dynon Road?

Where will your passing tourists gain insight into the explosion of early 20th-century holiday-makers—indeed, their forerunners—who arrived in their thousands to occupy Lorne’s score of excellent guesthouses and its three hotels [The Lorne, The Grand Pacific, and The Quamby] and of the many stories they tell?

GORCAPA’s own data claims that “The Lorne Pier is a popular destination frequented by locals, tourists, and anglers for recreation and fishing. Located in the heart of Lorne, the pier is a bustling hub of activity, with more than 90,000 visitors recorded on average each month during the peak season, from November to January and public holidays.”

With all those visitors, history matters, and not just the wraiths of the Otway’s Indigenous history but the concrete history of Lorne that its pier and its precinct fostered. It was the pier and its rich history that made Lorne possible, while the road that is lauded in GORCAPA’s title came a half century later.
I fear that GORCAPA has the balance sadly out of proportion, though whether intentionally or under the influence of its ‘diverse advisory bodies’ is difficult to tell. In my view, the current UDF fails—and fails badly—in its representation of ‘the things that matter’ at the Pier Precinct and Point Grey.

While the Port of Lorne has been a gazetted Victorian port for 150 years, does it still formally exist? GORCAPA website suggests that it does [though its information page on the topic is undated: see: https://tinyurl.com/733zh4uk]. The website states clearly that it, GORCAPA “manages the Port of Lorne on behalf of the Department of Transport”, then proceeds to list its responsibilities under the Transport Integration Act, Marine Safety Act, and Port Management Act. The first two [of the many] responsibilities GORCAPA must fulfil under the Act for the still-designated Port of Lorne include:

• To manage the operations of the port, particularly concerning shipping and boating activities in the port, to ensure that those operations are carried out safely, efficiently and effectively.
• To provide, develop, and maintain port facilities, including wharves, jetties, slipways, breakwaters, moorings, buildings, and vehicle parks. [Writers Note: … presumably this includes boat maintenance and boat washing, though these latter responsibilities have been conveniently omitted from their list].

As many have previously pointed out, there are many shortcomings with the current curator’s plans for the Pier and Point Grey. Let us hope that the Lorne community of 2025/26 will be able to echo the confidence of the Geelong Advertiser’s ‘own correspondent’ when, in 1877, he wrote:

“… Lorne shall [soon] have a good, substantial, and commodious jetty”

And, as a community, we will be able to say with conviction that:

“… Lorne shall [soon] have a good, substantial, and commodious renovation or replacement for the current Co-Op and LAAC buildings on their current indoor/outdoor footprints such that they may fulfil the same community functions they have so faithfully provided in the past [and tell Lorne’s story far into the future]. This is much needed, and GORCAPA knows it.”

John Agar
Feature Writer

A word from the chairman

Hello
As we slide past the mid-point of winter and the days start to lengthen, it is a good time to do a stocktake of the major issues facing Lorne and the progress (or lack thereof) we are making on them. It will be no surprise that I consider the top three issues facing the Committee for Lorne and the Lorne community are:
1. Housing Affordability
2. The Point Grey redevelopment
3. The Future of the Pool/Foreshore precinct

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As reported last week, we are in-between community workshops being conducted by Surf Coast Shire to address the issue of housing affordability, and just to be clear, we are not talking about “affordable housing” or “social housing” but accommodation available to be purchased or rented by essential and key workers and their families. I will report further following the second workshop to be held on Monday, July 2.
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Point Grey! Where does one start? Last weekend, a comprehensive article about the current state of Point Grey was published in the Melbourne Age – https://tinyurl.com/Age-PointGrey. They used to say, “any publicity is good publicity”, but not when it paints a picture of inertia, bureaucratic red tape and community frustration. As we wait for publication of the results of the community consultation on the Urban Design Framework and survey, we hope that the community voice will not only be heard but listened to and that the revised plans for the precinct will honour and respect the history of this special place, producing an outcome which is welcoming to visitors and locals and of which we can all be proud.
Recently, the Aquatic Club redevelopment sub-committee met with representatives of the Point Grey precinct redevelopment architectural team to discuss the design of the new Aquatic Club building. It was an opportunity for the LAAC representatives to provide the architects with an updated summary of the Club’s requirements for the new clubhouse and to review the spatial requirements and functionality of the new building.
The architects have set an ambitious programme to have a design for the clubhouse ready for town planning by 31 August (yes, this year!). This will require a concerted effort by all parties and a fortnightly meeting schedule has been set. The project timeline is for construction to commence and be completed in 2026.
The architects are working to the same timeframe for the renewed Co-op building and GORCAPA will shortly be convening meetings of the Community Reference Group to discuss the design of that building.
It is difficult to see how this rate of progress can be achieved without a resolution to the many and fundamental flaws in the draft UDF but, as always, we live in hope!
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And then there is the pool and foreshore precinct. GORCAPA has recently announced that it has resolved to issue a new lease to the existing tenant. Very little detail has been provided and there is a lot more to say about this, but that will have to wait for another week!

Cheers