ThrowbackThursday: Lower Plenty Shops, c.1965

Looking southwest at the intersection of Para Road with Main Road, Lower Plenty, c.1965 (Photographer: ©Russell Yeoman; from the collection of Eltham District Historical Society)

#ThrowbackThursday – Today we time travel back over 50 years, setting the Tardis to circa 1965 and the Lower Plenty shops. Dominated by Maunder’s Supa-Valu Food store  situated at the corner of Main Road and Para Road, the shopping strip runs along the west side of Main Road finishing with the Ampol and Caltex Service Stations operating side by side, opposite the intersection of Main Road and Old Eltham Road.

Looking northeast at the intersection of Old Eltham Road at Main Road, Lower Plenty, c.1965. (Photographer: ©Russell Yeoman; from the collection of Eltham District Historical Society)

As featured in a previous post, the shops remain much the same with some redevelopment but the two service stations, which over the years were also updated are now well and truly gone and currently a large development site. The Caltex was the first to go replaced by a Drive-in Liquor store, Lower Plenty Liquor Barn, some time between 1989 and 2007. By 2009 it had been updated again into a Bottlemart, the Ampol Service station still operating. By February 2014 the Ampol had been bulldozed and the Bottlemart demolished in July 2017.

Looking southwest at the intersection of Para Road with Main Road, Lower Plenty, October 2017 (Image: Google Street View)

Looking northeast at the intersection of Old Eltham Road at Main Road, Lower Plenty, October 2017 (Image: Google Street View)