Robert Pascoe,

Dean Laureate and Professor Emeritus Victoria University

President of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria,

together with RHSV Councillors

invites you to the launch of our exhibition

The Burying of Melbourne

curated by Dr David Thompson

designed by Susan Fitzgerald

to be launched by Steven Avery,

Executive Director, Heritage Victoria

at 5:30pm on Thursday 4 September, 2025

RHSV Gallery, 239 A’Beckett St, Melbourne 3000

office@historyvictoria.org.au | 03 9326 9288

In the mid-1850s some areas of the Melbourne CBD were buried under a layer of clay at the direction of Melbourne City Council, a rather extraordinary event that until recently had been largely forgotten. It is only in recent years that archaeologists carrying out the excavations required prior to developments in the city have uncovered evidence of the clay layer.

A study commissioned by the Heritage Council of Victoria found that the burying was part of efforts by the City Council to control flooding, caused largely by the original laying out of Melbourne’s street grid without due consideration of the flow of water over the underlying topography.

The depositing of the clay layer, metres thick in some places, had a significant effect on the lives and circumstances of those affected but did result in the sealing off of a layer of archaeology stemming from the earliest days of European settlement.

This exhibition, The Burying of Melbourne, describes events leading up to the burial and looks at some of the archaeology discovered beneath the clay.