Batman’s Hill in Docklands

January 24, 2025

Batman’s Hill in Docklands

Batman’s Hill is one of the eight precincts of Docklands in Melbourne. Opposite Southern Cross Station, the precinct was intended to ‘fill the gap’ between the CBD grid and Docklands and ‘stitch’ the old and new parts of the city together. It is bounded by Collins, Spencer, Flinders St and Batman’s Hill Drive. It was so named when the precincts were created in the late 1990s.

On 20 November 2013, the Age reported that a development had been approved for the 2.5 ha site that would “include a pocket park and public square and laneway connections between Collins and Flinders streets”.

Three commercial towers and a build-to-sell residential tower have been completed. A build-to-rent residential tower is under construction and due for completion in 2026.

The public square

On a cold, wet day last year, when taking refuge in the foyer of One Melbourne Quarter, I was intrigued by the text on the upper wall of the foyer.

I learned that it was an interpretation of the text of a letter written by Captain Lancey to his employer, John Pascoe Fawkner. It describes the terrain in August 1835, not long after John Batman had signed ‘the treaty’ with Wurundjeri elders in June 1835^1.

“Your lordship has been fortunate in the lot I chose for you. A more delightful spot, I think, cannot be. Beautiful grass, a pleasant prospect, a fine fresh-water river, and the vessel laying alongside the bank discharging at a musket-shot distance from a pleasant hill where I intend to put your house. The garden will trend to the south by the east side of this hill, at its foot, towards the river, from which it can be easily watered. The west side of the hill is a beautiful prospect. … This hill is composed of a rich, black soil, thinly wooded with honeysuckle and she-oak. Good grass, a quantity of herbage that I cannot name more than three, viz., parsley of good flavour, peppermint, as good as any I ever tasted, and geraniums in abundance. Indeed, it is almost a task to describe the pleasantness of the situation, as well as its localities for goodness.”²

The typographic frieze was created by John Warwicker with accompanying text by Bruce Pascoe and incorporated into the architectural panelling by the architects, Denton Corker Marshall.

John Batman built a house on the hill which came to be associated with his name.

Batman’s Hill was subsequently levelled to make way for the expanding Spencer St railway station and approaches.

It was erased.

Public art at Melbourne Quarter

Lendlease engaged Broached Commissions to commission and curate the public art at Melbourne Quarter. All the artwork relates to the extreme sensitivity and complexity of this significant site. Rather than ‘plonking’ public art in the public realm, it has been embedded in the public square and in the buildings themselves. You come across them, as I did, rather than them presenting as stand alone pieces.

‘It is incredible that what defines it (Batman’s Hill) is the absence of the very earth the history was acted out upon’ writes Broached’s Lou Weis.

There are two other works in the public square: Yhonnie Scarce’s memorial to the murnong plant which had sustained Kulin people for tens of thousands of years and Lisa Young’s The Grid begins which traces the escalating value of land following the first land sales in Melbourne, the foundation of Melburnians ongoing preoccupation with property values.

In a plot twist, Bain Attwood in Possession: Batman’s Treaty and the Matter of History, says that the Batman’s Hill precinct is not the original site of Batman’s Hill.

¹Deadly story The Batman ‘treaty’ is signed

²A report to Fawkner, Monday, August 24th, 1835 by Captain John Lancey reproduced on the website of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria

³ Public Art at MQ