Brighton Beach & Beach Huts

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1st March - Brighton Beach Beach Huts #heygo http://www.heygo.com

Our tour started in front of Brighton Beach Hotel, Established as the Royal Terminus Hotel in the 1840s, Brighton Beach Hotel remains one of Brighton's oldest landmarks. Once formerly well known as Milano’s Tavern, Brighton Beach Hotel is the second hotel south of the Yarra River and originally built of local red ironstone. The hotel was once so remote that it was bailed up by bushrangers.

Very quickly the establishment of five gracious sitting rooms, seven bedrooms for 30 shillings a week and stables became a destination resort. Also for hire were the prototype bathing boxes, these were wheeled into the bay for a healthy sea dip. Today, the altered but recognisable "Georgian" facade has witnessed it all and is classified by the National Trust.



We walked along the beach and we saw black swans in the sea, the bathing boxes came into view and in the distance on the horizon the city of Melbourne.



Built well over a century ago in response to very Victorian ideas of morality and seaside bathing, the bathing boxes remain almost unchanged. All retain classic Victorian architectural features with timber framing, weatherboards and corrugated iron roofs, though they also bear the hallmarks of individual licencees' artistic and colourful embellishments.

There are 82 beach huts all beautifully decorated.

The boxes were built for a woman to change their clothes for the beach in the 1800s, they were not aware of the knicker trick back then! Staying true to their history, you are not allowed to have running water in the boxes, electricity, or to sleep overnight here.



In 1906, the completion of a tram line from St. Kilda to Brighton led to an increase in applications for bathing box permits and significant construction between 1908 and 1911; final numbers are uncertain, but between 100 and 200 bathing box sites may have been allocated prior to the Great Depression.



Our tour ended sitting on the beach watching the beautiful sunset. #virtualtrips.



Brighton houses some of the wealthiest citizens in Melbourne with grand homes, and the development of large residential blocks of land.

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