Royal Arcade

Welcome to the oldest surviving shopping arcade in Australia. Royal Arcade opened in eighteen sixty-nine, and walking through it is like stepping into a Victorian time capsule. But look up at the south end, because that is where the real magic happens. Two giant carved figures, each about seven feet tall, stand on either side of an enormous clock. These are Gog and Magog, and every hour on the hour, their arms swing down to strike the bells.

They have been doing this since eighteen ninety-two. One hundred and thirty-plus years of hourly bell-striking, and they have not missed a shift. The figures were carved from clear pine by a craftsman named Mortimer Godfrey, modelled on the Gog and Magog statues in London's Guildhall. Those London originals date back to seventeen oh eight and represent the mythical conflict between the ancient Britons and Trojan invaders. Why Melbourne has its own pair is a beautiful example of colonial cities trying to recreate the grandeur of the mother country.

The clock itself was made by Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Ziegeler, a German-born clockmaker, for Thomas Gaunt, one of Melbourne's most prominent clock and instrument makers. Gaunt never actually saw the finished installation. He died in eighteen ninety, two years before Gog and Magog were put in place. The arcade itself is the work of architect Charles Webb, who also designed the Windsor Hotel. Notice the original iron lacework and the glass canopy. This is one of the few places in Melbourne where you can see exactly what Victorian-era shopping looked like: intimate, ornate, and absolutely dripping with ambition for a city that was barely thirty years old when this was built.