The Melbourne supremacy: Cricket, culture and condemned men in Australia's spin city

By Marcus Scriven
Updated: 05:03 EST, 24 December 2010

There are more than two million books in the State Library in Melbourne. And there's no doubt about the single word that matters above all others. 'VICTORIA' is inscribed above the massive portico at the entrance in proud capital letters of gold.

It is emblematic of the defining moment in the city's past  -  the discovery of gold in 1851. More was unearthed here than in the rushes of California and Alaska combined. Within a year, the city population rose from 77,000 to 340,000. It was the dawn of 'Marvellous Melbourne'.

On reflection: Melbourne sits in picturesque fashion on the banks of the River Yarra

In the following decades, swaggering new buildings went up: not just the Library, but the colonnaded State Parliament, the lavish Royal Exhibition Building, which required seven million bricks, and grand private houses.

There was also what would become, to sports-crazed Melburnians, the city's most sacred icon: the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground), known locally as 'the G'.

This was the scene of the first England v Australia Test in 1877, where this Boxing Day the Barmy Army will be in full, raucous voice at the start of the fourth Test in the current, gripping Ashes series.

But even the most ardent fan should explore beyond the turnstile. And part of Melbourne's allure is that everything can be done on foot.

It's a comfortable, 20-minute walk from the MCG, through Yarra Park and the eucalyptus trees of Fitzroy and Treasury Gardens, to Spring Street on the western edge of the city centre, in a grid of streets in which even the first-time visitor can't lose his bearings. These are criss-crossed by a tram service that is both clean and cheap.

On Spring Street, glance in at the Windsor Hotel. Dating from 1883, it is today rather tired as it awaits major (and controversial) renovation, but its grand ballroom and staircase - a 75ft cantilevered marvel - have an undeniable Agatha Christie charm.

It is, though, the 21st-century version of Marvellous Melbourne that should claim your custom: perhaps the Langham, swankily positioned in the heart of the city on the south bank of the Yarra River. But the Langham's a place of almost ridiculous modesty by comparison with its newest neighbour, the massive, three-hotel Crown.

This is Footballers' Wives territory: good fun in short spells.

Melbourne's architecture - including Flinders Street Station - is a throwback to the Victoria gold rush

The latest addition, the Crown Metropol, is more subtle.  The 27th floor has a spa, gym and an infinity pool, so you feel you're about to float out. Up above, there's the top floor, '28', an exclusive lounge including a 'sky bar' and terrace. The views are spectacular - to the south and east are a cityscape. To the northeast, the world changes.

Beyond the ochre and red of Flinders Street Station is the brazenly modern Federation Square, exhibition spaces and galleries linked by inventive geometrics. Closer in, shards of steel and glass soar skywards, including 984ft Eureka Tower that has the Southern Hemisphere's highest public vantage point.

Its lifts hurtle you to the top in under 40 seconds. There, it's time for the 'Edge' - a glass-floored, glass-walled cage jutting out from the building and leaving you suspended over the city.

After this, a decent drink may be in order, possibly amid the extravagance of the Hopetoun Tea Rooms, part of the stately face of the Block Arcade, built in 1892, off Collins Street.

Numerous older buildings in the city centre have been inspirationally re-adapted: the colonnades of the Old Post Office loom over a clutch of fashion houses; the Nicholas Building on Swanston Street, one of a scattering of Art Deco gems, is home to rag-trade retro and a poetry bookshop. Meanwhile, everywhere else - or so it seems - has become a bar.

Pop back to Spring Street, to No 161: on the first floor, you'll find the Supper Club, or head up a floor to its sister establishment, Siglo, a terrace bar with views of the State Parliament. Then there's Von Haus, a couple of minutes away in Crossley Street, a time-capsule (its doors were closed from 1945 until 2007). The glint behind the bar comes from a collection of soldiers' shaving mirrors.

There are plenty of new kids on the block, like Coda, a basement with thrillingly good cooking and vertiginous prices.

Cumulus, on Flinders Lane, is less painful on the wallet, as is the Queen Victoria Market, built in 1878. Its fruit and veg stalls lead to a warren of marble-fronted kiosks. In among the delicatessens, you'll find Ferguson Plarre Bakehouse - and a proper beef pie for £3.

After this, walk ten minutes to Russell Street - and the Old Gaol. Opened in 1845, it's a grippingly atmospheric place. Feeble light filters through three floors of cage-wire landings. Each cell is unaltered, its constricted window secured by external bars (the glass an inch thick), each door studded with iron hinges. Only the padlocks - weighing 2½lb apiece - have been removed.

Spin when you're winning: Melbourne will host the fourth Ashes Test (and England's Graeme Swann) this week

Inmates were subjected to solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, and rigid silence, punctuated only by the sound of a bell, dictating when they were to wake, eat, work, pray, read the Bible, sleep.

On the rare occasions that they left their cells, they were obliged to don a calico hood. Gruesome descriptions of botched executions appear beside a hangman's box (rope included).

Spurred on by the dodgy science of phrenology - a belief that character was determined by the shape of the skull - the prison authorities ensured that a death mask was made of each executed prisoner.

A quartet - one by the name of Archer - are displayed in a cell. Shorn of hair, moustaches, Victorian clothes, they look strikingly contemporary - perhaps not dissimilar to someone you've been sitting next to at the MCG.

Travel Facts

Qantas (08457 747 767, www.qantas.com) flies twice daily from London Heathrow to Melbourne. Return flights from £920.

The Crown Metropol has rooms from £200 per night: www.crownmetropol.com.au.

For more information visit, www.australia.com.

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