Hampton by the Sea - An Introduction

Winter 2007

In recent years, the Melbourne suburb of Hampton has seen a dramatic rise in popularity, both as a residential area and as a destination and venue for recreational pursuits, such as shopping, beach-going and indulging in the many restaurants which dot its main shopping precincts. Yet, it was not always so.
Barely 25 years ago, Hampton was a quiet suburban backwater that most other Melburnians had never heard of, or assumed it to be associated with Hampton Park (near Dandenong). So what has happened, that has seen this place go from relative obscurity to being lauded as a gem in Melbourne’s crown? To understand the present, we must look into the past. I won’t bother trying to bluff my way through my scattered knowledge of the early part of Hampton’s history because far more knowledgeable people have already done it – here. Also, the point of this project is to discover some of it for ourselves.
After the Second World War, areas that had been set aside by the Housing Commission, were developed for returned servicemen. An example of this was the Castlefield Estate, roughly bounded by Hampton Street, Ludstone Street, Bluff Road and South Road. For the next 40 years, these veterans, together with an established lower middle-class population, formed the mainstay of Hampton and some of its environs. As well as a smattering of migrants, professionals and businessmen, this blend proved to be quite conservative and extremely stable. Solid citizens who would live out their entire lives in blissful anonymity. Nothing ever ‘happened’ in Hampton, which is why most of Melbourne ignored us. A very young ’Papugai’ moved into Hampton in about 1970, in it’s halcyon days.
However, old people have a habit of dying and one look at the Melway would show you that someone else was going to make another type of ‘killing’. A recent real estate report announced that the median price for a property in Hampton had dropped a few percentage points to ‘just’ $970 000. The same property in 1980 would have fetched about $20 000. When the dear old souls started passing away, there were suddenly houses on the market in the 70s, 80s and even in the 90s for the first time since the 20s and 30s! Yuppies swarmed in like locusts and devoured anything that they could get their hands on. Initially this provided Hampton with a much-needed facelift – original features were picked-out with heritage and other colour schemes, restaurants opened, some funky shops appeared and there were people in Hampton Street of an evening. I remember driving down some streets after not having lived in Hampton for several years and commenting on how “I hadn’t realized how gorgeous these old house really were when I had lived here”. However, human nature being what it is, the more you have, the more you want. When restoring your house to its original glory just doesn’t do it for you any more, the next step is to go up. In many streets, virtually every second house has a second storey. The natural evolution of this mentality is to demolish the house altogether and erect one of those hideous Inform houses. Actually, they’re not so bad in their own right (ignoring the colour scheme for the moment), but it’s in the context of what they replace and how they change the character of the neighbourhood that they do the most damage. I mean, really. Who honestly thinks that brown, beige and grey concrete is an attractive alternative to a colourful Californian bungalow or an Edwardian?
However, we’re not here to be pessimistic. There are some advantages to this influx of new money. When I was a child and youth, Hampton Street shopping (apart from groceries) was problematic and something to be avoided at all costs. It was generally assumed that because nobody in their right mind would buy anything there, the shops had very few customers, resulting in exorbitant profit margins. They existed solely for unsuspecting travellers or for cases of extreme emergency. In addition to this, the fashions in these shops were necessarily at least 20 years behind the calendar date. We believed that it was part of a grand conspiracy in which we were supposed to dress differently to keep outsiders away and that Hampton was a dumping ground for excess stock from previous decades on the grounds that “anyone stupid enough to buy this stuff, doesn’t know the difference anyway”. Nope. It was Bourke Street in the city for me or, if I was really lucky, a trip to the chic boutiques of Southland. In light of this, I see that Hattams is still around, and they are to be applauded for making the transition from ‘functional and comfortable work wear’ (where a shop assistant didn’t bat an eyelid when an elderly father-of-Papugai with a heavy European accent asked him whether he had “fleas”, before correcting this to “flares”) to a beacon of sartorial elegance. How the worm has turned. Now people from other suburbs come to do their shopping here! With a brand new beach and countless restaurants and cafes, the place is positively buzzing. At least while the private equity market is still booming and not busting – but that’s another story.
However, it’s now time to get to the rationale and methodology behind this project. In the tradition of the great Parisian flâneurs, a pedestrian survey of the great suburb of Hampton will be undertaken inch by inch. But which Hampton, you may ask. Given that boundaries of suburbs and municipalities are now subject to the shifting agendas of commerce, geo-political associations, re-zoning, renaming, we are pleased to introduce the M86 Protocol. This means that we will use the boundaries of the ‘classic’ Hampton as defined by the borders and standards of the 1986 Edition 16 Melway (M86). As a result, we do not recognize such entities as ‘Bayside City Council’, ‘Hampton East’ or he creeping cannibalism of ‘Brighton Beach’ around New Street.

You may see the current Melway (2007) edition’s maps of the area with our borders superimposed on them – map 76 2007 and map 77 2007. The M86 versions of these maps may be seen without our borders here – map 76 1986 and map 77 1986.
And for the really nostalgic, the 1968 versions are also here – map 76 1968 and map 77 1968.
You may notice that the western-most boundary of our project is the waterline at the beach. However, the northern boundary of Hampton is defined as the back fences of the first row of properties on the south side of South Road. That is, both sides of South Road belong to Brighton in the western half of the project and Brighton East in the eastern half. Likewise, both sides of Bluff Road belong to Hampton (apart from a tiny chunk at the South Road intersection – M86), and both sides of Highett Road/Bridge Street belong to Hampton. Some boundaries between suburbs are down the middle of a road, but this is not the case here. Therefore, traversing the precise legal boundary would require us to walk on the back fences of properties in the above-mentioned areas. Unfortunately, my fence-walking days are long behind me, so that walking both sides of South Road, Bluff Road and Highett Road/Bridge Street will suffice. In the case of South Road, even though both sides are in Brighton/Brighton East, it is technically necessary for us to walk on the southern side, so we may as well do the northern side also.
We anticipate that it will take at least 30 sessions to thoroughly cover the area, walking hundreds of kilometres. For each adventure, we will target a certain block or area and this will be known as the ‘red zone’. Travel to and from the red zone and through areas covered previously will be known as the ‘blue zone’. The distances covered in the red and blue zones will be calculated, collated and posted with each new blog. Photographs and narratives from each participant will also be posted, as well as maps of the areas covered on any given session. We will identify and document areas of historical and personal significance for each of the participants. In any ‘freestyle’ adventure of this type, interesting observations and events are bound to occur and will be analyzed and documented as interesting anecdotes. This blog site will serve as our personal diary of our past and present association with Hampton. All that we ask of any readers out there, is that you share with us any interesting facts or anecdotes about Hampton.
Some aspects of Hampton that we will explore include:
· What happened to the Hampton Hotel?
· Who remembers where the best shop was to get your fireworks supplies for Guy Fawkes Night?
· Where was the original Poci’s Pizza?
· Who remembers the story of Dr. George Cranstoun, who murdered three of his own children and a servant, tried to kill his wife and their other two children and soon after, died by his own hand? Available literature cites that he lived in ‘Station Street’, Hampton. Of course, such a street is non-existent in Hampton, but could they be referring to Railway Crescent? We will undertake some research and get to the bottom of this.
· What is the story behind a small, framed picture hanging in the barber’s near the station? This picture depicts in cartoon-like form several naked women performing a can-can dance with the caption ‘William Tell Overture’. What is remarkable about this picture is that it has been in this establishment for at least 30 years, through several renovations and proprietors.
To finish off, in case you were wondering, ‘Papugai’ is a portmanteau of ‘papa’ and ‘popugai’ – the Russian word for parrot. I’ve never heard a satisfactory explanation of why my children occasionally refer to me as ‘Father Parrot’, but it explains the presence of a parrot in our coat-of-arms/logogram. The other elements include a view of Beach Road, three matrioshka dolls, a couple of Pegasuses as a nod to the now-defunct Hampton High, and a motto which we’ll let you work out for yourselves. Here is also our frontispiece.
Anyway, enjoy! We’re off now on our first adventure. See you on the streets and maybe in your front yards, admiring your garden gnomes.
And no, Hampton is nowhere near Hampton Park.
Papugai