Yarra Falls Bridge, Yarra River from Southbank C.1861

Yarra Falls Bridge, Yarra River from Southbank C.1861

Yarra Falls Bridge from the Southern ends Queen Street and William Street, with the bridge built over the top of them in 1860. This is very near the present location of Queens Bridge, and this is probably the best surviving photo of "the falls", which were dynamited out of existence in 1883. Until that date, these rocky falls, less than a metre in height, separated the navigable, tidal and brackish part of the Yarra downstream, from the freshwater upstream. In fact, the position of these falls, at the furthest originally navigable point up the Yarra, was the reason that Melbourne was founded at this location! After the removal of these falls in 1883, the river became navigable up as far as Dight's Falls in Kew, but at the expense of the loss of much sensitive river botany by salination. For 69 years, the Yarra Falls Bridge was the crossing furthest downstream on the Yarra - until the Spencer Street Bridge was opened, as late as 1929