The Block Arcade

The Block Arcade is a heritage-listed nineteenth-century shopping arcade on Collins Street and part of the city centre's network of lanes and arcades. It was built between 1891 and 1893 to a design by the architects Twentyman and Askew, with the Collins Street section completed in late 1891 and the whole arcade opening on 7 October 1893. Its design was modelled on the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in Milan.

The arcade is L-shaped. It runs in from 282 Collins Street, turns towards Elizabeth Street, and Block Place connects it to Little Collins Street, so it is easy to walk through on the way between other parts of the city grid. The six-storey facades on Collins and Elizabeth Streets are in the Mannerist style of the late Victorian period, while inside the floors are laid with mosaic tiles, and the glass canopy is carried on cast and wrought iron supports. Tall timber shopfronts, stained glass and an octagonal rotunda at the corner complete the effect. The arcade has been on the Victorian Heritage Register since October 1974, under listing H0032.

Today the shops include boutiques and cafés, and Haigh's Chocolates has a store here. For well over a century the arcade was home to the Hopetoun Tea Rooms, which opened here in 1894; the business has since moved out and is building new tearooms in the Kozminsky Building at 421 Bourke Street, with a bake shop on McKillop Street in the meantime.

The arcade is free to enter and works as a short stop of fifteen to thirty minutes, or longer if you sit down for tea. Check the official website for current opening hours before going early in the morning or late in the evening.

It is well placed for a walk through the city's lanes and arcades. Centre Place, with its stencil art and cafés, runs between Collins Street and Flinders Lane, and the Royal Arcade, built in 1869 and among the oldest arcades in the city, links Little Collins Street with Bourke Street Mall, where the figures of Gog and Magog stand at its southern end beside a clock that chimes the hour. Hosier Lane and Degraves Street are a few minutes further south towards Flinders Street. Combining them makes a good morning's walk, ending with coffee in one of the lanes.