Murray, Robert Dundas.

A summer at Port Phillip / by Robert Dundas Murray. (Edinburgh : William Tait, 1843)

This account of a visit to pre-gold rush Melbourne includes as a frontispiece, “Villa on the Yarra, near Melbourne.” The villa appears to be on the Punt Road Hill, and presents quite an idyllic prospect.

Murray writes of the rapid expansion of Melbourne that “During the few months of my stay more than a hundred dwellings had risen from the ground, all of which were inhabited immediately on completion.”

He describes the houses, commenting that because of the high price of labour and the level of demand for homes their design has been simplified,

Passages and lobbies are carefully avoided as being of superfluous utility; windows are made to serve the purposes of doors and doors those of windows; and, in fine, every appendage that could possibly be curtailed is made to yield to motives of economy. There is, however, much of picturesque beauty in the aspect of these houses, as they are seen crowned by their low pavilion roofs, with dropping eaves, and resting in the shade of the broad verandahs which encircle their walls, (p. 34-35)

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