A former hat factory in Sherbourne Road Eltham has in the past been used for various purposes and a self storage business currently operates from these premises.
The Karingal Yallock Creek passes through the front of the land and the creek environs are the subject of significant and unusual landscaping works, including some cascading water channels. Some of the landscaping was damaged by the Christmas Day floods of 2011, but the main elements remain intact.
The landscaped area (as distinct from the factory itself) is the subject of a Heritage Overlay under the Nillumbik Planning Scheme. The basis of this overlay is a Heritage Report by Graeme Butler and Associates in 2006. As well as an assessment of the landscaped area, it includes one background information on the history of the site (although a complete history would require more research).
The site was part of Crown Portion 3 of the Parish of Nillumbik that remained as the Montmorency Farm until early in the twentieth century. The 1911 subdivision of this farm created Lot 7 of some seven acres, which is the site of this factory. The Heritage Report lists the various owners of the site. From the rate records and aerial photos it is concluded that the site was used as an orchard and farmland until the 1940s. William F Crellin, orchardist, owned the site from 1912 to 1923. Then Edmund Williams owned it until 1951.
In 1955 the site was owned by Rupert V. Kirsch and this is the name anecdotally associated with the hat factory, where the well-known brand of Fayrefield Hats were manufactured. There is some belief that this was built about the time of the Second World War and that hats for the armed forces were made there.
The featured aerial photo from the early 1950s held by the Society shows that part of the factory complex had been built then.
Other reference items of interest include:
The Hat Factory – a personal recollection of the hat factory and followup feature on the gardens, Hat Factory Revisited
The fish pond which was part of the landscaped gardens emerged into the Victorian skateboarding scene in 1977.
Fort Knox Self Storage Tips It’s Hat To A Historical Past
A series of eight photos showing various internal views of the hat factory and staff members at Christmas 1959, held by the State Library of Victoria, can be accessed via Trove
Eltham District Historical Society Inc. 
Thanks for this post. I found it an interesting read. As a note bene, the Fletcher Jones Factory and Gardens in Warrnambool was another industrial garden created in the years following the war, a result of that company’s advanced approach to employee feelings of engagement and fulfillment. The Fletcher Jones “Modern New Decentralised Garden Factory” has long since ceased operations as a factory, but the gardens around the buildings are well maintained and are heritage listed. A pity the hat factory gardens in Eltham could not be similarly conserved, or for that matter, resurrected.
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RE: “A pity the hat factory gardens in Eltham could not be similarly conserved, or for that matter, resurrected.”
Agreed, I sometimes buy myself a coffee from the 7eleven, sit down there and think exactly that. But who cares enough to do it ?
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Just discovered this little garden…the lawn still mowed but generally feelings of abandonment here. This place even had a fountain and stream running at some point.
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I have a slouch hat made at the hat factory which I wore during my conscription in the army 1971-72 and I lived in ELTHAM
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Thanks for sharing Michael – makes that slouch hat even more special to you.
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