Stables and Dear Eliza

From hooves and harnesses to cocktails and conversation.

Listen for a different soundtrack: hooves striking the ground, harnesses shifting and wooden coach wheels arriving from the road. Architectural plans from 1902 show a large arched carriageway through the building, providing access from Lydiard Street to the rear stables.

By 1862, during the era of Charles and Eliza Forster and early publican Sarah Cox, the hotel’s working grounds included thirteen stalls and twelve loose boxes extending towards Armstrong Street. Stablehands tended horses while travellers rested inside. The facilities supported horses, vehicles and coach connections to Geelong.

The supplied historical accounts refer to an 1864 sketch associated with local historian Nathan Spielvogel and an unpublished 1943 manuscript by John Hargreaves. Together with early archives, these records offer glimpses of the hotel’s former layout and working life.

Look around the rear wing and courtyard and consider how travel has changed—from horse stalls and carriage access to the needs of modern visitors and car parking. These practical spaces were essential to the comfort offered inside the grand hotel.

Today, the old stables welcome guests as Dear Eliza Social Club, named in honour of Eliza Hannah Forster. Handcrafted signature cocktails, interactive electronic darts, shuffleboard and billiards bring people together for relaxed conversation and friendly competition. Live music adds to the evening atmosphere.

The precinct connects through the laneway to Armstrong Street North, linking this once bustling service area with the wider city. Where horses rested between journeys, people now pause to enjoy an evening together.

Over more than 170 years, publicans, staff and guests have gathered on this pioneer site to eat, drink, rest, celebrate and share stories. Look around the room, through the courtyard and back towards Lydiard Street. You are inside living history—and the next chapter belongs to you.