Monday, November 30, 2015

Where in Melbourne puzzle December 2015

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RECENT UPDATES:

 01 12 2015 - the first clue and a part of the puzzle picture have been revealed.
 07 12 2015 - the second clue and a bit more of the puzzle picture have been revealed.
 14 12 2015 - the third clue and a bit more of the puzzle picture have been revealed.
 11 01 2016 - due to other commitments, this blog was not updated during the latter part of December.
 11 01 2016 - Puzzle revealed.
 11 01 2016 - Brief history of Princes Bridge added.
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Welcome, this is the Osca Monthly Where in Melbourne Puzzle page.



   Melbourne is a fascinating place. Full of history and interesting people. Each month, we find somewhere historically significant, curious, unusual or downright amazing and send our intrepid photographer to take a picture to use for the puzzle.

The picture is obscured at first, but every Monday of the month a piece of it is revealed.

In the beginning, the puzzle is hard but not impossible to solve.
To make it a little easier, there is also an additional handy clue with each picture.

For the astute observer, there are sufficient hints from the very 1st clue.

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 THIS PUZZLE HAS BEEN REVEALED

DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY




 First Clue


The cover picture is a busy Melbourne spot circa 1930.

Trams and cars have been jostling for space in Melbourne for a long time,
 If you can work out where the cover picture was taken,
the location is a clue to this months Where In Melbourne Puzzle.
. . .

Second Clue

As more jigsaw pieces are added, a clearer picture is emerging.

These cars and trams are heading to a famous Melbourne meeting place.
. . .

Third Clue

11 more jigsaw pieces added.

The Argus newspaper published a lengthy article on 18th March 1882
explaining how the 'proposed new project' was too lavish and would
add 'immensely' to costs. 

Specifically, it felt the planned width of 99 feet was unnecessary
because 'the most noted examples in Paris, Rome 
and other great European capitals'  were only 60 to 70 feet wide.
. . .

Fourth clue

This bridge was built in 1888, but two others stood in its place earlier.
. . .

Fifth clue

'A Royal Card Game'
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PUZZLE REVEAL

The picture is of the Princes Bridge
spanning the Yarra River
joining Swanston Street and St.Kilda Road.


The photo used for this month's puzzle is by David Illif. Licence: CC-BY-SA 3.0

Here is the location compliments of a GoogleEarth map.


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BRIEF HISTORY OF PRINCES BRIDGE

When Melbourne was founded in 1835 there was no permanent crossing point of the Yarra River.

As Melbourne grew, and more people settled the township, various punt and ferry operators set up business to ferry people and other traffic across the river.

The colonial government in Sydney was not exactly forthcoming in providing infrastructure funds for Victoria. Let alone a construction of a fancy new bridge. Most of Melbourne’s early infrastructure was therefore provided by private enterprise. Now we have a federal government in Canberra and Melbourne's infrastructure woes seem awfully familiar.

 A private company was formed in April 1840 to construct a bridge across the Yarra. Both the Elizabeth Street traders and their counterparts in Swanston Street wanted the crossing hoping for the through traffic that would be generated by a bridge.

Lieutenant-Governor Charles La Trobe favoured an Elizabeth Street crossing, but despite such official pressure the private company favoured the construction conditions at Swanston Street, which had become regarded as the growing town's main street. It was on that street in 1840 that they opened their wooden toll bridge.


In 1844, a wooden trestle 'toll bridge' bridge was built across the Yarra river.

The foundation stone for a new bridge was laid in 1846 and the bridge was opened in 1851.



The bridge had a single span of 150 ft (46 m). At the time, one of the longest, flattest stone arch bridges in the world, it was named the Prince's Bridge after the prince of Wales, later Edward VII.


A paddle steamer with Prince's bridge in the background, on the way to Cremorne Pleasure Gardens (now known as amusement parks) situated on the banks of the Yarra in Richmond

Within a year of the opening, gold was discovered in country Victoria and Melbourne swelled with a massive increase in population. The Yarra river had to be widened downstream from the bridge to provide for the increased shipping traffic and modified upstream to mitigate major floods that we common in the early years. The bridge had to be widened to cope with the increased use.

In 1885, seven municipalities south of the Yarra river agreed to contribute to the cost of building a new bridge. South Melbourne, Prahran, St Kilda, Malvern, Brighton, Caulfield and Moorabbin,


The decorated cast iron spandrels feature coats of arms, including those of the State of Victoria, the City of Melbourne, the Royal Arms and six of the seven municipalities that contributed to the cost of the bridge. For no apparent reason, that of the Shire of Malvern was omitted.

The new bridge was designed by John Grainger and built by David Munro using ironwork fabricated by Langlands foundry in Melbourne.



Construction on the new bridge began in 1886 and it was opened on 4 October 1888, in time for the second International Exhibition to be held in Melbourne. As with many historic Melbournian buildings and bridges, the bridge is built on solid bluestone bulwarks with plenty of cast iron.


In 1924,the bridge was reinforced to take the weight of the electric trams which were soon to replace the previous cable trams along St Kilda Road. The name of the bridge was then changed to Princes Bridge.

Princes Bridge is 30 metres (99 ft) wide and 120 metres (400 ft) long, with Harcourt granite squat half columns resting on the bluestone piers that support the three iron girder arch spans. The design bears a close resemblance to the earlier Blackfriars Bridge over the Thames River in London, which was completed in 1869.

Princes Bridge is wider, 99 ft compared with 80 ft, but with 3 spans of 100 ft and an overall length of 400 ft it is much shorter that Blackfriars Bridge's 5 spans with its central span of 185 ft. Both are excellent surviving examples of Arch Bridge design in the late 19th century.

Research and further information links:

wikipedia

rarepostcard

search slv vic gov

onmydoorstep

emelbourne biogs

walkingmelbourne

ciaofamiglia

resources2 news

google earth



Collated by:
Rubblesby aka Osca Armstrong

This page has been updated on the 11th of January 2016.

The next Where in Melbourne Puzzle will be posted on the 1st of February 2016.



"Thank you for coming by."

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