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Buninyong's Old Shops
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Buninyong's original stores
Something old ... something new ... Recognise these shops that have changed hands over the last few years?
Learmonth Street shops
Original timbered shopfronts with wide shady verandahs in Learmonth St
Warrenheip Street shops
401 Warrenheip Street (next to the Bank)
This historically and architecturally important homemade brick building with adzed timber floors was built in the early 1860s for George Whykes' Grocery and Farm Produce Store. It has a cellar used for cool-storing milk, butter, cheese and eggs. The shop was closed in the 1960s then reopened in 1975 by Michael and Pat Whiteside who ran the Boninyong Market there, selling tea towels, flowers and secondhand furniture. It later operated as the Persimmon Tea-rooms until 1980 then Susie McKay opened an upmarket and innovative restaurant, Steptoes, that gained a statewide reputation for fine dining. In 1986 an old mine tunnel collapsed about 25 feet underground, undermining the south wall and requiring extensive repairs. In 1989, the adjoining Old Tin Shed was pulled down (also the 1856 weatherboard house on the north side) and the building became derelict after Susie wound up Steptoes in 1990. In recent years it has operated as a garden supplies/homewares shop.
The south-east corner of Eyre and Warrenheip Streets in the late 1970's, before the Bank and new Post Office were built. (Photo by Michael Whiteside) Middleton's Ironmongery and Garage
One of the few weatherboard shops still standing and still used, this shop on the corner of Eyre and Warrenheip Streets was built around 1873 and for many years was known as Middleton’s ironmongery. In the 1920s the first petrol bowser in Buninyong, seen in the photo below, was erected on the footpath. Since then it has had many different uses: as a second-hand clothing shop, saddlery, antiques store, florist, mortgage broker, and more recently as a real estate office. 