Historical information

Hughes Fruit Shop and Milk Bar, Main Road, Eltham, c.1949 promoting Peters Ice Cream

Immediately to the right of the shop is a bootmaker factory that employed 15 people. It was situated on the corner of Pryor Street and is the site of the present-day Westpac Bank. To the left of the shop are four vacant blocks stretching to Luck Street where Mr and Mrs Britton had a house. On the other side of Pryor Street is the original Blue Gum Cafe and Milk Bar advertising Swallow's Ice Cream. Atr the time it was operated by Pop Warner.

Behind the shop is a tall Bluegum tree. This was the tree that the Bluegum Cafe was originally named after. Miss Barber's 'Blue Gum' Soda Fountain opened October 1922 and was the first shop on the eastern side of Main Road following Luther Haley's Bakery and General Store on the other side adjacent to the railway station in 1902. The Bluegum was felled in the early 1960s when Burge's Blue Gum Cafe and milkbar was sold and demolished in September 1960 to make way for a new store, Mr. J. Millet's Foodland.
OLD LANDMARK GOES
Perhaps the most famous landmark in Eltham's' business section disappeared last Wednesday when the towering blue gum in Pryor Street at the rear of Main Road shops was felled.
The tree, stated to be more than 80 feet high, was the one for which the adjoining café was named, when that business was Eltham’s only provision store, long before the turn of the century.
Mr. J. Millett, who now owns the property on which the tree stood, deeply regretted its removal, but was mindful of the need for expansion in the business area.
The "Old Blue Gum" was removed by Mr. A. Wilson, expert tree feller, from Heidelberg. Its proportions might be assessed by these facts – it took a gang of experienced men two days to completely fell and clear the tree, and, falling sections being brought down by cable tipped electricity wires on the opposite side of Pryor Street.



Images from the private collection of Mrs Noel Williams (nee Hughes)
Noel’s parents, George Elgar Hughes and Jean Alice Hughes had a combined milk bar and fruit shop in Main Road, Eltham. Noel worked in the shop after leaving Eltham High School aged 15 (1950), until she married George Williams in 1956, whose grandparents, Violet and Will Williams, owned the Bellevue estate in Livingston Road, Eltham. Her father, then sold the property. George and Noel raised 3 children on their farm in Kangaroo Ground and Noel, who turned 90 years old in July 2025, is a life member of the Andrew Ross Museum.

Physical description

Digital copies of black and white prints (some original prints, some copies)