This entry may seem a little outsie the scope of WikiNorthia, but the so-called “Fitzroy” course was actually in well and truly in Northcote.
In 1891, Messrs Byrne and Callahan, two private investors, purchased 30 acres of land on the west side of St. Georges Road in Northcote (between today’s Gadd Street and Wootton Avenue) to establish a pony racing track five furlongs in circumference (later extended) and including a grandstand capable of seating 500 people.
The original name was the Croxton Racecourse (appropriate, as it was close to the Croxton Park Hotel where racing had been second only to Flemington some twenty years earlier). The initial venture floundered in the depression years of the early 1890s and the course closed in October of the same year.
It re-opened in February of 1892 under the control of the Fitzroy Pony, Galloway and Trotting Club and became known as the Fitzroy Racecourse, even although it was some distance from that suburb.
At the time St. Georges Road was considered very much the backblocks of Northcote, with little residential development, the street itself unmade and many patrons without access to the Preston-Whittlesea train had a considerable walk or cab ride from the North Fitzroy tram terminus at the Merri Creek.
The racecourse was initially very successful and drew in crowds from near and far, but by the turn of the century, local residents of the rapidly filling area were raising objections that it was drawing in the lower elements of society and that dust raised from the sand and cinder track was proving a nuisance (especially as the club usually raced on Mondays, typically the housewife’s washing day).
A small meeting on Monday, 23 October, 1893 saw Fitzroy make history when a device that eventually has become an integral part of modern-day racing was seen for the first time with a starting barrier accredited to Mr. J. H. Scott of Burwood was used to replace the old “flag” starts.
The device proved so successful that by December, all pony races at the course were being started by what was then the “”Excelsior” starting machine and a similar machine was used for the 1894 Melbourne Cup.
In 1919 the Victorian Trotting and Racing Association under the auspices of Ben Nathan and John Wren purchased the racecourse as its critics continued to plot its demise.
The course is known to have closed down the first half of 1925 when the track was re-cindered and re-graded at a cost of around £1000 with a sewerage system at £700 also in the make-over, Fitzroy re-opened on Monday, 22 June of that year, The Sporting Globe in its next edition bemoaning the fact that only four favourites had been successful – from some 14 races!
In 1929, the Victorian Government introduced legislation to close the racecourse on the grounds that it was too small and as part of plan to shut down most of the privately owned courses around Melbourne.
There was a lifeline available – the Act provided for Fitzroy, like Richmond, to continue for another year if works at Ascot were not complete, but after a dramatic reduction in the number of pony and trotting meetings was introduced, the Government decided Fitzroy was not required.
The grounds were officially closed to racing from 31 July, 1931 with the last meeting held on 20 July, and although occasionally used for charity carnivals, athletics and junior football matches, the land remained largely vacant until June, 1941 when an investor outlaid around £30,000 and subdivided the area into around 178 housing lots. Initial reports suggested some 200 blocks may be available, but Northcote Council insisted that additional streets were required to subdivide the 20 acre site and today’s Bradley and Bird Streets were added.
There were earlier suggestions that the names of racehorses be used, but local opposition, seemingly designed to break the traditional link to racing and the Northcote Council adopted alternative names, that a of a recent mayor (Allan Bird) and City Engineer (Bradley).
The first section of 45 lots was released for sale at auction in February, 1942, every block sold at a total return of £13,720, just under £305 per site.
Details of the later sales do not seem to have been published. but if the first day’s sale average is extended, the remaining 142 potentially might have brought another £43,294 and a total of £57,014, by any stretch of the imagination a handsome return to the unknown investor during the darkening days of the Second World War.
In reporting the first sale of the famous old site, the Sporting Globe’s Merv Williams (better known as Mumblin’ Merv during his later days with Channel 7’s World of Sport) added :=
“It will come as a kick in the pants to the Japs to learn that Australians fell over themselves to spend thousands of pounds buying building sites after what they have threatened to do to our cities”
… but in reality, there were genuine concerns that it would take several years for the housing to be completed given the wartime rationing of materials.
A MMBW Map of 1909 shows stabling area near the corner of St. George’s Road and Gadd Street; public access through there to a ticket booth and a fence isolating the members stand and stewards office opposite the winning post. There appears to be another public stand to the west accessible from Gadd Street, but no other builings on the site.
The map reveals remoteness of the area even as later as 1909; blocks were marked out, but there were just two houses in each of Woolton Avenue and Shaftesbury Parade to the north, and none in either Leinster Grove or Gadd Street, although Josiah Pitt’s Tannery is obvious in the latter.
The scales provided on the map suggests the track was approximately 1100 yards in circumference, or five furlongs in the parlance of the day. There appears to have been a small chute extending the track in the north-eastern section ajoing the corner of Woolton Avenue an St. George’s Road.
The map also suggests the course dropped about 16 feet from east to west – from 162 feet above sea level to 146 feet at the Leinster Grove end – meaning a fairly significant uphill run to the winning post opposite the stand