As you travel around Melbourne these days you can’t help but notice empty shops and wonder what the future will look like if we lose the culture of going to the local shopping strip.
There are so many memories and history that’s already disappearing into the vast expansion of shopping malls and development sites.
Windmill is one of the shops that has stood the test of time and remains – for the time being anyway.
It is located near the intersection of Whitehorse and Union Roads in Surrey Hill.
Older people remember this shopping strip as the one that had the Clock Face traffic lights.
The Marshalites were gone by the time my family moved behind Windmill when my parents started it in 1977.
At that time the shopping strip was known as the Mont Albert Tram Terminus, where the tram lines ended before the line was extended to Box Hill.
It was a thriving little centre with two milk bars, a grocery shop, two fruit shops, and one or two butchers.
Some of the other shop owners had children who went to Mont Albert Primary School with us. My teacher was married to a tram driver and I would sometimes see him when he stopped the tram at the terminus.
Hill Top Cakes, the delicious Swiss bakery, started 10 years after Windmill and they are still there too, as well some other great little shops and restaurants, including a wool shop, the chemist, and a post office over the road near Geisha Cafe.
In October we had a lot of disruption to our shopping strip as work was being done on the tram line in Box hill and bus stops and bollards took up a lot of the road and car spaces.
I am so glad the work has finished and things are getting back to normal. Shoppers can again pull up out the front, park around the corner in Clapham Street, or park in the car park around the back.
I am very grateful to Windmill’s many loyal customers, established over four and a half decades.
Hopefully, the owners of the small businesses and people in the community can keep our shopping strip culture alive for a little bit longer.
I think many of the shops here appear to be built in the 1920s and I am interested to find out more about the history.
Windmill is brimming with great stock at the moment as all our Christmas Catalogue products have been arriving.
We are more than willing to suggest ideas for Christmas gifts for children depending on interests, age, and stage of development.
Here is a very general list of suggestions by age of products you can find at Windmill this year:
0+ Sensory spinners Aussie animals
1+ Hape Early Melodies Pound and Tap Bench
2+ Stacking block train
3+ Magnetic tiles
4+ Iringo construction blocks, walkie talkies
5+ Fat Brain Toys Heap-O-Sheep game
6+ Maverick pogo stick
7+ Xtrem Bots – Charlie Astronaut, tie dye art kit
8+ Planetarium projector
9+ Droodle A Doodle family game
10+ BattleBird Waboba
11+ Plasma ball 12.5cm – Thames and Kosmos
12+ Wheeler’s fibre optic lamp
Windmill also has puzzles, games, science things, art and craft for all ages, and a great selection of baby toys, trains, vehicles, outdoor play, role play, tea sets, wooden Australian-made children’s tables, walker wagons, doll’s houses, and more.
The friendly staff at windmill are always happy to help you find the right toy. Windmill is located at 593 Whitehorse Road, Surrey Hills.
Visit windmill.net.au.
– Jo Richards, managing director
Windmill Educational Toys and Equipment
