Daily Photo – The Tower & The Dome
Being left to my own devices in Melbourne for a few hours, I found my way into the Central Place mall, one of those bustling, multi-storey hubs that seamlessly blends Melbourne’s love for heritage and the arts with a healthy dose of modern retail therapy. I instantly felt completely overwhelmed and started examining what series of decisions had taken place to lead me here.
Thankfully, I was able to distract myself with the large glass dome that covered the complex, beneath which sits Coop’s Shot Tower and Flanking Lead Factory. I’d read earlier that it was completed in 1889, with a 50-metre-high brick tower that, at the time, was the tallest building in Melbourne’s CBD until the mid-1940s. I’d also read that it was designed to manufacture lead shot for shotguns and that, from 1919, it was run by Ellen Coop, a position that was incredibly rare for a woman to hold at the time, and one in which she was extremely successful for more than two decades, until she was tragically killed after falling from the back of a Melbourne tram.
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I’ve walked past that tower countless times and never knew its full story. Thanks for shedding light on Melbourne’s lead-shot making past!