Image courtesy: David Field
Polly and Spanish Poll. Many cases involved women, one described as ‘a loquacious little bundle of humanity’ and another as ‘a well known nymph of the pave’. In his pre-‘Quartz-King’ days, George Lansell was before the court charged with causing a public nuisance by carrying out the business of a soap boiler and candle maker at View Point. The Wedding Window townhouse was built alongside the new court building around 1871 by Robert Strickland. The city forefather after whom Strickland Road is named arrived in Bendigo as a young digger. He became a butcher, a councillor, mayor, the local member of parliament, a brewer and worked with the Mining Department before studying law. He practiced as a barrister in Bendigo and was then appointed as the coroner and later a police magistrate. Incredulously, Mr Strickland built the townhouse without having title to the land which was referred to as ‘attempting to squat’. Having such a profound commitment set in stone on un-secured ground is hardly a fitting omen for the newlyweds that now flock to its ruinous window. Fortunately for Mr Strickland, he managed to acquire the government owned land ahead of any other prospective purchasers when it was later offered for public sale — with his townhouse in situ. Who knows if a man of such influence achieved so favourable an outcome by more than just good fortune? Another “grand old man of Bendigo”, Dr Oliver Penfold, purchased the townhouse from Mr Strickland in 1878. He too was a man of many accomplishments, described as ‘a surgeon, pharmacist, musician and composer. A fine outstanding Australian whose record of service to the community is seldom equalled’. Dr Penfold immediately extended the townhouse with a two-storey frontage to View Street and used it as his residence and practice. Remarkably, Dr Penfold’s imposing extension remained intact after fire gutted the rear townhouse portion in the 1990s.
Serendipitously, the familiar synergy of births, deaths and marriages has also come about with the advent of the Wedding Window. Passersby will notice a pedestrian alleyway between the Penfold building and the Temperance Hall — used until recently as offices by Loddon Mallee Housing. The stone gate pillar at the View Street entrance to the alleyway still bears the faint sign “Births and Deaths Registrar’s Office” with a finger directing visitors “Up the Passage”. Brides and grooms who visit the Wedding Window each Saturday pose for the camera alongside the secluded former Registrar’s office — probably unknowingly. Gretna Green has for centuries been attracting thousands of young English brides and grooms across the border to take advantage of
Scotland’s consent-free marriage laws. Its arched Kissing Gate fronts the blacksmith shop and is framed with horse shoes pointing the right way to keep the luck in. So does Bendigo’s Wedding Window compare for good luck? Well the earliest Bendigonians on the site — Bendigo Mac, Robert Strickland and Oliver Penfold all had such fabulously interesting and prosperous lives that it can only bode well for every bride and groom that ventures there on their wedding day. Perhaps a local wedding superstition is born. 95
Image courtesy: Gail Hardy
Bendigo legal firms occupied the building for many years before the current owner, Kevin Colvin, acquired the premises in 1998 for the fittingly named Penfolds Fine Arts Gallery. Its fascinating past led Kevin to research and compile a yet to be published history of the building. Among his inquiries he learnt of a female ghost wearing a bustle. Although he has not sighted the ghost, Kevin has heard the footsteps of an unseeable visitor and speculates it may be the spectre of Mrs Mary Louisa Penfold who died in1889 at the age of 27, during Dr Penfold’s tenure of the building.