The following article is reproduced by permission of Noel Withers and extracted from “Banyule City Council Spring Outdoors Programme 2008: Greensborough & the Plenty River Pioneer Trail With Dennis Ward & Noel Withers. A ramble from the lower part of town and along the river bank learning about historic sites and the pioneering families that settled there from 1840 onward.”
The Farmers Hotel is currently the site of the Greensborough Hotel.
The Farmers Arms Hotel was built on the corner of Main and Hailes Street in 1864 by George Iredale to cater for the ever increasing number of wood carters and other hauliers carting their wares between Melbourne, timber mills and the gold fields.
Unfortunately Iredale due to restrictions of the day was unable to gain his publicans licence immediately because James Chapman had built Marble Hall almost diagonally opposite on the corner of Main street and what is now called Para road and had already obtained a licence in early 1850 and was deemed a licensed hotel, however Iredale managed to obtain a special licence to sell beer.
In reality the Farmers Arms catered for all the needs of the traveller providing refreshment, bedding and care of their horses at any time day or night with a lantern kept burning throughout the night to welcome the weary to refreshment and a bed ready for a 4am to 5am start the next morning.
The hotel continued until 1925 when the current building was erected on the site of the Farmers Arms and renamed the Greensborough hotel due to the hotel built by a Mr Ellis further up the hill of that name being burnt down in 1923.
A photograph of the hotel shows a light above the sign, horse drawn vehicles and a horse drinking trough, a building on the right was at one time a bakery, blacksmiths and later a urinal.
An inscription under the hotel sign board reads “Live and let Live”
Riotous behaviour was not uncommon at the hotel some patrons up from the city were described as nothing but a howling pack of savages, the scum of Melbourne. Fortunately most occasions were far more civilised.
Photos from Yarra Plenty Regional Library Diamond Valley Local History Digitisation Project
