Youthful seamen have learned their nautical craft at Western Beach’s clubrooms. Recreational rowers have worked muscle and oar through its shallow waters. Workman have hammered drilled and sawn rough timbers into sleek sailing craft. Since the 1840s this busy marine precinct on the edge of Corio Bay has blended recreation with business: swimming and boat launches yachting forays and running repairs rowing and angling. Today Western Beach remains a busy enclave of industry and recreation and wonderful natural assets. The pretty north-facing shoreline has been reclaimed walking boulevards and seawalls and piers have been built. Where thick timber once filled the clifftop you’ll now find peppercorns figs eucalypts palms and green slopes. Listen closely and you’ll hear a sea of constant birdsong – wattlebirds herons seagulls cormorants pied oyster catchers bristle-necked grebes and plump pigeons.
On a sunlit day look closely and you can see a diamond glister as it flashes over the waters of Corio Bay.
Bathing
Geelong’s great love for swimming in Corio Bay was evident at Western Beach as early as the 1840s when a fierce rivalry emerged between it and Eastern Beach. Ironmonger Richard Parker set up The Geelong Public Bathing House in 1844 and the popularity of Western Beach quickly sparked a bathing-house war with the Geelong Sea Bathing Company a kilometre to the east. In the early days an unwritten rule designated Western Beach for men’s bathing and Eastern Beach for women. Often however certain gentlemen ignored this convention and respectable women were frightened off. While Parker’s operation was destroyed by a storm others were keen to exploit the area.
In 1856 the Western Beach Sea Bathing Company started up. A year later it built a second bathing house providing the public with one for men and one for women.
In 1870 Henry Fitzgerald built his Victoria Baths at the end of Cavendish Street. Ongoing competition from Eastern Beach prompted the two Western. Beach operators to join forces in 1873. The Victoria Baths (PDF) were designated for gentlemen and the Western Beach facility for ladies after its original ladies’ baths were demolished. The baths changed name to the Western Beach Gents Baths and remained a fixture of the beach for many years. Time and tide however eventually took their toll and they were removed over several years between 1927 and 1938.
Today a forest of shipping masts ply the water where these popular bathing houses once stood.
Building and servicing boats
Charlie Blunt’s Boatbuilders Barrow’s Boatyard Higgs Brothers... These names are synonymous with Western Beach’s long-time boating enterprises. Likewise the Western Beach Boat Club (PDF) Western Beach Boatyard and Geelong Harbour Trust Slipway and Lew Marine.
The Geelong Harbour Trust leased the Western Beach sites to various boat-building and servicing interests. Slipways were installed and the trust undertook its own activities on site as well. Craft were winched up from the water then shunted sideways for maintenance and repair works. The marine operations sprang up at Western Beach after Geelong’s maritime industries were cleared from Eastern Beach in the late 1920s. Times were changing. The bathing houses of the 19th century had gone and Eastern Beach was evolving into an Art Deco masterpiece. Billy Blunt built workboats some of which were used in New Guinea during World War 2. Barrows rented space to amateur fishermen to house their boats. The Higgs Brothers built trawlers for the American Australian and Royal navies which were used in the Coral Sea and New Guinea. All manner of craft were fashioned by these master boatbuilders. The Alexander Thomson Annie Taylor Erskine Austides Lauristan Leederry and Two Brothers are just some of their handiwork. Lew Marine bought the Geelong Nautical Centre chandlery using it to make bridles and slings. It then took over the adjoining Higgs Brothers site. Next door was Ausport Marine’s boat construction and maintenance yard.
The sea wall
Western Beach’s promenades and marine precinct have been built on land reclaimed in several projects since the 1890s. The initial foreshore reclamations were built to access the baths and provide land for the Geelong Harbour Trust. Further extensions were made in the 1930s and 1950s to assist marine industries and boat club activity.