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The five precincts · Precinct 1

The Paris End

The Hoddle Grid, drawn to scale
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Use arrow keys to pan and plus or minus to zoom. The list of precincts and buildings below opens the same guides and building pages.

Map 1The Hoddle Grid, with The Paris End marked.Plane Trees & Boulevard
Precinct 1 — The Paris End
1 of 5

The Paris End

Collins Street east of Swanston, climbing to the Old Treasury.

Every city has one street everyone would live on if they could; Melbourne's climbs from Swanston Street to the Old Treasury. The shopfronts along the rise are the dressiest in the country, the Treasury Gardens sit behind the top of the street, and the apartment houses have been doing the same job since the twenties.

Collins Street east of Swanston, rising to the Spring Street institutions. The street trees, planted in the French boulevard manner from 1875, gave these blocks their name — in everyday use as 'the Paris End' by the early 1950s. Scots' Church (1874), the Athenaeum's 1886 facade, and the Old Treasury Building (1858–62) still set the register: dressed stone, deep foyers, and dinner within a short walk.

Current listings
5
currently public
Indexed buildings
11
in the heritage index
Street cue
Plane Trees & Boulevard
Search path
Building first
then listing, then agent
Bounded by
NLittle Collins Street
ESpring Street
SFlinders Street
WSwanston Street
On the record
The Paris End
Street trees
Planted in the French boulevard manner from 1875 — the plantations behind the 'Paris End' name.
City of Melbourne
'The Paris End'
In everyday use by the early 1950s, when Mirka and Georges Mora took rooms at 9 Collins Street.
St Kilda Historical Society
Scots' Church
Opened 29 November 1874; Reed & Barnes.
VHR H0005
Old Treasury Building
Built 1858–62; J. J. Clark.
VHR H1526
Melbourne Athenaeum
Collins Street facade completed 1886; Smith & Johnson.
VHR H0501
VHR numbers link to the place's Victorian Heritage Database entry. Further reading: Hoddle Grid Heritage Review (City of Melbourne).Entry reviewed 11 July 2026
Buildings and places

Buildings to start with.

  1. 01
    1 ExhibitionCommercial Renaissance Palazzo
    1925
  2. 02
    Herald Sun BuildingNeo Classical
    1921
  3. 03
  4. 04
    Sargood HouseInter War Concrete Warehouse
    1929
  5. 052001
  6. 062023
  7. 07
    35 Spring StreetContemporary
    2017
  8. 08
    Cavendish HouseGreek Revival
    1927
  9. 09
    Clyde HouseJacobean
    1915
  10. 101927
  11. 112014
Precinct 1 continued

The name arrived in the fifties.

Mirka and Georges Mora took rooms at 9 Collins Street in the fifties, when the comparison with Paris still needed making — the plane trees had been in since 1875, planted in the French style, and the street had grown into them. Seventy years on, nobody has asked for the name back.

Built in the twenties, never bettered.

The dressiest few blocks in the country are also a place people live. Sargood House by Godfrey & Spowers, Cavendish House by A & K Henderson, the Herald Sun Building of 1921 — deep foyers, dressed stone, staircases built properly the first time. A century on, these are still the addresses the east end is judged by.

Heritage Melbourne precinct guidePlane Trees & Boulevard
Precinct 1 of 5