Compared: Phillip Island and San Remo 1920s to now

Phillip Island and San Remo have changed a lot since the 1920s. Have a look at the pictures here.

Phillip Island and San Remo have changed a lot since the 1920s.

There is now a bridge and made roads.

The Cowes Pier is no longer a transport hub.

But some things have stayed the same, like the scenery and natural environment.

Phillip Island was part of the homelands of the Yallok Bulluk people of the Bunurong/Boonwurrung clan for many thousands of years before white exploration of the area began. The Bunurong/Boonwurrung people called the island “Millowl”.

The Island attracted European settlement and a thriving fur seal trade in the early 1800s. George Bass was the first European to visit Western Port on the 5th January 1798 after a voyage down the coast from Port Jackson in a 28ft whaleboat.

Have a look at the pictures to see how much the Island and parts of San Remo have changed.

Old pictures from Phillip Island and District Historical Society.

The jetty was built in 1870, lengthened in 1884-85 and again in 1909.

For many years a trolley on iron rails was used to carry goods from the jetty.

Today the jetty is used by tour boats, fishermen and swimmers and it no longer has iron rails to transport goods.

The first post office on Phillip Island was located in Ventnor on a resident’s farm and was declared the smallest registered post office in Australia.

The post office later moved to the Ventnor State School (now closed) and then it moved again to a small building near a main road.

The Cowes Post Office opened on August 1, 1869 and mail used to be carried between Cowes and Ventnor on horseback.

The Jetty Shed remains fairly similar in looks to what it did in the 1920s when it would have been used to store the trolley and goods to be transported.

It has since been converted into a cafe and then a restaurant.

The San Remo Hotel was built by Tom Bergin and named Bergin’s Hotel in the 1870s. There have been just three owners of the San Remo Hotel since its establishment.

It was purchased by Tom Williams back in 1941 and remains in the Williams family today.

The site of the original ‘Continental’ was Phillip Island’s first livery stable, owned by Mr A. Findlay.

There were two huts and on old stable lined along the four boundaries with very tall pine trees.

With the decision to build a modern guesthouse in the area, a syndicate was formed to purchase the land with The Continental built in 1923 as a one storey-building containing 42 bedrooms and a 100-foot-long veranda in front.

Harry and Kitty Jobe, purchased the hotel in 1957. In 1971, Keith, their son and partner Rhonda purchased the Conti from Harry and Kitty. They still own it today.

In 1974 the hotel was destroyed by fire but was rebuilt.

In 1873, the first ferry service to Cowes began.

A bridge was built between Newhaven and San Remo in 1940.

Until then a series of steam ferries provided the only regular passenger and cargo service on Western Port.

Pictured here is the Genista. It was a 24m timber steamer built in Sydney in 1886 and commenced duty as the Stony Point/Phillip Island/San Remo ferry in 1889.

In 1935 she sank at her Rhyll moorings while being dismantled.

Vehicular ferries ran between Stony Point and Cowes between 1933 and 1948.

Situated in the south of Cape Woolamai is a set of naturally formed colonnades known as The Pinnacles.

They are now a stop along the Cape Woolamai Coastal walk which also takes you past the beacon and the old granite quarry.

Cowes Primary School, State School 1282, was established in 1874 in a leased building in the main street of Cowes.

The school moved from this site, where the cultural centre now sits, to a site on Settlement Rd in 1952 with the intention of building a consolidated Phillip Island School.

The school was opened on its current site in August 1954 with only two rooms and an office. It was never big enough and for many years the school operated from two sites.

Finally in 1966, the school underwent a redevelopment and the school was united.

Cowes Primary has battled many buildings burning down but has rebuilt after each one and the school continues to expand today.

Osbourne Park was in Beach Street Cowes.

It was replaced by Bayside Caravan Park, later Sails on Beach apartments.

From 1923 until 2008, Warley Bush Nursing Hospital served the Island and San Remo communities.

It provided vital health services, both major and minor.

Warley Hospital was established in 1923 in a house which Mr W E Thompson purchased, in response to his wife Lucy’s request.

Mrs Thompson had been a nurse and along with several friends was distressed that people had to be taken by boat to get to a hospital.

Warley was named after the area Mr Thompson lived in when he was growing up. The Dixon twins – John and Laurie – both have “Warley” as their second names as they were the first twins born there.

In 2008 the hospital was closed and in 2020 the building was pulled down.

The site of the Isle of Wight Hotel was first purchased by John Richardson of Keynton in 1869. It was then transferred to Mr Albert Purchas, an architect, on the 20th April 1883.

The Isle of Wight hotel was totally destroyed by fire in 1925 and rebuilt a few years later in 1927, only for it to be destroyed by another fire in 2010.

It has not been rebuilt.

The monument was erected in 1920 to commemorate the men of Phillip Island who died in service or were killed in action in World War I.

Names of those who died in service or were killed in action in World War II were added at a later date.

This memorial was the cause of much local bickering with some saying the money should have instead been put into a Soldiers Club Room.

The Cenotaph has since been updated and more names and plaques added.

Rhyll is a small fishing town located in the northeast corner of the island.

It is named after Rhyl, a holiday resort in Denbighshire, Wales.

The first European to arrive in the area was George Bass, who landed in 1798 to make repairs to his ship. He returned in the same year with Matthew Flinders and a memorial for this landing is maintained close to Rhyll pier.

The Nobbies is an incredibly important site for Australia’s largest colony of Fur Seals. These cobblestone rocks that jut out of the water are a dramatic strip of land attached to the Phillip Island coastline.

There is now a boardwalk and visitor centre located at the Nobbies however, people used to be free to walk right down the rocks and even climb on them.

At first glance this beach appears the same as it always has but a closer look shows the low dunes that once backed the beach are now gone and in places the base of the slope drops a metre straight down to the sand.

In 1893, a timber enclosure was built at the end of this beach to protect bathers from sharks and later a building with change rooms was added.

It has since been taken down.

Cowes takes its name from the port on the Isle of Wight, England. it was originally known as Mussel Rocks but the name was changed by a Government Surveyor.

It is the administrative hub of Phillip Island and houses most of the Islands services such as restaurants, medical services, the main post office and supermarkets.

The Penguin Parade was established back in the 1920s when island residents Bert West, Bern Denham, and Bert Watchorn opened Summerland Beach up for the first organised viewings of the penguins.

They greeted visitors off the ferry and charged five shillings for a personalised tour of Phillip Island.

It wasn’t until the 1960s that fences and viewing stands were built to stop visitors standing on and ruining the penguins’ burrows.

Lovers walk is an easy stroll along the Cowes Foreshore.