Bread by the cart load
MANY Geelong residents can fondly remember the days when bread was delivered to our doors by horse and cart.
Such was the competition among the bakeries that there were dozens of horse-drawn bread carts operating throughout Geelong.
One of the largest bakeries in the early 1900s was Chris Bant’s Bakery in Moorabool St on the corner of Verner St, which is today the site of Cellarbrations bottle shop.
As we can see in the main picture, Bant’s Rossendale Bakery, as it was known, boasted several carts for the delivery runs throughout South Geelong and surrounds.
Bant’s Bakery had disappeared some time after World War I, with the corner site becoming a grocery store. But by the 1930s another wellknown Geelong bakery, Cherry’s, had established itself in the adjoining site to the south in Moorabool St.
One bakery building that has survived the passing of the years is E.S. Potter’s bakery in Potter St, Geelong West, which is today a group of fashionable units.
Potter St had been called Victoria St originally. As with so many of Geelong’s earlier streets, there was no shortage of streets with the same name across the suburbs. In the case of Victoria St, these included the one that remains in North Geelong and another in East Geelong, which has also been renamed.
According to my late colleague Bernie Slattery, the last horse-drawn bakery cart in Geelong ceased operations on February 23, 1967, when Podbury Bakery’s Jim Russell made his final rounds with his workmate Britain.
Writing in 1994, Mr Slattery said Mr Russell had been delivering bread for Podbury’s by horse and cart for 22 years. But while his faithful horse Britain retired to a life of leisure, Mr Russell continued bread deliveries for some years using a motorised van. THE Cressy District History Group, in conjunction with the Cressy Aerodrome, is holding a centenary celebration and reenactment on Sunday, September 8, at the Cressy Historic RAAF Base, 175 Aerodrome Rd, from noon.
The first aeroplane to land at Cressy did so at 3.45pm on September 8, 1919. The plane, an Avro biplane piloted by Capt W.V. Herbert, was part of a publicity drive for the postwar Peace Loan scheme.
Entry to the Cressy event is $5. Inquiries: 0481 327 587. Contact peterjohnbegg@gmail.com