Imminent sale of Launceston hotel where Melbourne's settlement was seeded

It was in the original iteration of The Cornwall, in 1835, that the tee-total publican John Pascoe Fawkner overheard the big plans John Batman and his Port Phillip Association were hatching to cross Bass Strait, drive a stake into the turf of what would become Victoria, and claim a massive chunk of land around Port Phillip Bay for themselves.

Johnny Fawkner wasn’t part of the syndicate but being a pugnacious and endlessly ambitious colonial entrepreneur, he wanted in on the land grab so much he quickly organised and provisioned a little ship, the Enterprize, and in August 1835 he and his crew of first settlers sailed up the Tamar for the mainland territory that had, until then, eluded white occupation. 

Because he had debts owing, Fawkner was taken off the boat before it exited the river. But it was his crew who landed beside the Yarra on August 30 to commence permanent settlement. It was his crew who ploughed the first field and felled the first trees with steel axes. 

It was October before Batman made it back to the place he’d envisioned for a village, and that he’d earlier explored and for which he’d signed the shonky deed of sale with the Indigenous owners, the Wurundjeri. 

So, this is how and where the protracted battle to be named the founding father of Melbourne began between two disputatious men from Launceston. 

If those who’ve recently put in an expression of interest to buy The Cornwall and its nice CBD parcel of 2219 square metres are successful, it could be known by the end of this month if they’ve paid around the estimated $4 million plus, says Knight Frank Launceston property consultant Charles Black.

And just to bring the story full circle, it could turn out that they’re mainlanders buying a hotel that claims to be one of Australia’s most storied and historic from a Launceston syndicate of owners who had it for about seven years and who undertook much refurbishing so it can be occupied mainly by “overseas workers coming in for the berry picking or beef processing jobs”.

Black says while there was local interest in a business that came with a triple income stream – from the accommodation, from weekly renting a once-nightclub area to Hillsong Church for their weekly services, and to a coffee shop and bakery – “we’re expecting a mainlander probably with a development story in mind”.

Pascoe Fawkner had built the pub in 1824 and while the sales pitch suggested some of the walls of that original building survive in the rear of the Cameron Street property, the long, handsome and heritage-noteworthy Federation façade was built much later and will have to stay in situ. 

That’s a good idea in a very pretty town that has preserved so well, so much of its lovely old building stock, and in a town benefiting from a tourism rebound, strong agricultural earnings, and, says Black, “workers coming in for the hydro schemes. 

“[Economically,] Tassy is rocking. Until the last quarter when we dropped to second place, Tasmania has been the best performing state for eight quarters in a row.”

Launceston is rocking along with it all. “There is a lot of money coming into this town and this hotel is in a great location, right in the CBD and close to city park, the river and the new uni. Brand new office buildings are going up around it.”

Black maintains that The Cornwall is ripe for redevelopment because as historic as the site is, “the building at the back has been pretty hacked around. It’s all over the place”.