Locals and visitors alike will be familiar with the florist shop on the corner of Healesville’s Green Street and Maroondah Highway, but flowers have played only a small part in that corner’s long history.
When the first land sales were held in 1865 in the newly established hamlet of Healesville, William Hall bought that block, on what was then known as Nicholson Street, and established his ‘Shoeing and General Blacksmith and Wheelwright’ business.
It remained in the Hall family for three generations, justifying its local description as ‘Hall’s Corner’.
In an age when the horse ‘ruled the road’ so to speak, the blacksmith was kingpin.
Horses had to be shod and drays, carts, and wagons maintained or repaired.
William Hall had chosen a prime spot which became Healesville’s busiest corner, diagonally opposite the Yorkshire Arms.
It was said that the ‘smithy’ became the resort of every man who owned a horse—and there were few who did not.
Their horses went to Hall’s and their drivers ‘adjourned’ to the Yorkshire Arms.
It was no uncommon site to see Nicholson Street filled with 200 packhorses all enroute to the terrible but fascinating gold tracks beyond the Black Spur.
On William Hall’s death the business passed to his son Ted, and in due course to his son, Ted jnr., but by the early years of the 20th century the old split-timber and palings building had become dilapidated, and on 4 July 1909 it was demolished bringing an end to a notable business dynasty.
But as times and circumstances change so a new era begins, and Hall’s Corner became the site for the next seven decades of garages and car distribution businesses, chiefly under the Ford banner, and continuing the general tradition of ‘transport’.
Names such as Roche, Pollard, McKenzie, Lyne and Griggs were associated with the corner, reflecting the changes that took place in the types of vehicles and services offered.
When the last dealership closed in 1981, the corner took on a different character, the most familiar business for a long while being ‘Grandma’s Kitchen’.
An interesting twist to the story is that the florist now on the site is also selling items made by a local blacksmith.
