Locals save 109-year-old store as heritage buildings find new life across Melbourne’s east

Historic buildings across Melbourne’s east are being given new life as community spaces and hospitality venues, with Ringwood’s 109-year-old Blood Brothers Store frontage the latest example of heritage preservation winning out over demolition plans.

Paving paradise? The general store, first opened on Bedford Road in 1915, was taken over by Maroondah Council in 2020. While initial plans were floated to develop a multi-level car park on the site, the Ringwood and District Historical Society pushed back against the proposal, with the council restarting the heritage assessment process and deciding to relocate the building instead.

It’s just one example of a growing campaign to keep the area’s history alive, as business owners and historical societies battle to protect the brick and corrugated iron look that remains across Melbourne’s eastern suburbs.

The east’s heritage history:

🧑‍🚒 House heritage: Sitting on Maroondah Highway, the Ringwood Fire Station’s 1929 brick frontage is protected under a Heritage Overlay, but opened as a hospitality venue in the mid-2000s. Husband and wife Nick and Beth Allardice took over and launched the Firehouse restaurant in 2019.

• Allardice said Ringwood had a special place in his wife’s family’s heart, with the suburb serving as a refuge after they fled from Poland during World War II.

• 🗣️ “One of the key drivers for moving to the area was our love for the community and our desire to give back to it after it gave her family so much,” Allardice told the Eastern Melburnian.

⛪ A sacred space: Around the corner, in Lilydale, a historic church on Castella Street is now home to the Harrow and Harvest Cafe, with original floors, stain glass windows and cathedral ceiling among features retained.

• Co-owner Vish Patel said he and his business partner took over the business two years ago, after realising how special the place was to locals.

• 🗣️ “There’s lots of cafes in Lilydale, but there’s not much of an aesthetic connection to history,” Patel told the Eastern Melburnian.

🗓️ Memory lane: Ringwood & District Historical Society president Russ Haines OAM said projects like The Firehouse restaurant were an example of modern business coexisting within heritage-listed exteriors.

• 🗣️ “Existing infrastructure can easily be adapted to suit a business, yet retain the heritage value of the building,” Haines told the Eastern Melburnian.