The Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW) plans were produced from the 1890s to the 1950s. They were crucial to the design and development of Melbourne's sewerage and drainage system. The plans, at a scale of 40 feet to 1 inch (1:480), provide a detailed historical record of Melbourne streetscapes and environmental features. Each plan covers one or two street blocks (roughly six streets), showing details of buildings, including garden layouts and ownership boundaries, and features such as laneways, drains, bridges, parks, municipal boundaries and other prominent landmarks as they existed at the time each plan was produced. (Source: State Library of Victoria)This plan forms part of a large group of MMBW plans and maps that was donated to the Society by the Mr Poulter, City Engineer of the City of Kew in 1989. Within this collection, thirty-five hand-coloured plans, backed with linen, are of statewide significance as they include annotations that provide details of construction materials used in buildings in the first decade of the 20th century as well as additional information about land ownership and usage. The copies in the Public Record Office Victoria and the State Library of Victoria are monochrome versions which do not denote building materials so that the maps in this collection are invaluable and unique tools for researchers and heritage consultants. A number of the plans are not held in the collection of the State Library of Victoria so they have the additional attribute of rarity.Original survey plan, issued by the MMBW to a contractor with responsibility for constructing sewers in the area identified on the plan within the Borough of Kew. The plan was at some stage hand-coloured, possibly by the contractor, but more likely by officers working in the Engineering Department of the Borough and later Town, then City of Kew. The hand-coloured sections of buildings on the plan were used to denote masonry or brick constructions (pink), weatherboard constructions (yellow), and public buildings (grey). In 1905, when Plan No.1564 was printed, that part of Kew bordered by Brougham Place (now Daniell Place), Mount Street, Sackville Street and Ross Street was already the location of a number of large mansions. Here, subdivisions, at least at this stage, produced larger blocks than in Central Kew. Many of the houses on this plan are named: ‘Faybrook’, ‘Northumbria’, ‘Parkholm[e]’, ‘Dunboe’, ‘Katoomba’ and ‘Eschol’ fronting Sackville Street. Eschol was once the home of the manufacturer Robert Harrison, whose cordial factory in Spring and Argyle Streets Fitzroy are noted on the Victorian Heritage Register. ‘The Hawthorns’ on the corner of Brougham Place and Mount Street was the home of the medical practitioner Frank William Fay, who won the military cross and other honours for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in World War 1.melbourne and metropolitan board of works, detail plans, mmbw 1564, cartography