Beer Adelaide

GLOBE HOTEL

Hotel ID : 5.001.H361

Date Opened : 1859
Date Closed : 1907

Address :
36 Rundle Street, Adelaide

History

GLOBE INN	1845	1871
GLOBE HOTEL	1871	1907

Hotel Photos

Publicans

Before it became one of the most recognisable locations in Rundle Mall, the site of the Myer Centre was home to one of South Australia’s most infamous pubs the Globe Hotel.

Built in 1845 by William Bell, the Globe was initially supplied by one of the colony’s first breweries, the Primrose Union Brewery, located just across Rundle Street. The hotel quickly became a popular watering hole for locals, but its reputation would soon take a turn.

Bell sold the hotel just a year later to John Carruthers, who expanded the stables and transformed the venue into a hub for equestrian life. The Globe became an early headquarters for both the South Australian Jockey Club and the SA Hunt Club. The venue also attracted the Squatters Club, a group of influential pastoralists whose presence gave the hotel a rowdier reputation.

The hotel’s passion for sport extended beyond the racetrack. On April 26th, 1860, the first Adelaide Football Club was formed at the Globe, South Australia’s earliest Australian Rules Football club (with no connection to today’s Adelaide Crows). The Adelaide Cricket Club had also called the hotel home as early as 1850.

As Rundle Street grew into a major commercial thoroughfare, the Globe Hotel found itself on prime real estate, located beside Marshall’s department store. In 1907, both the hotel and Marshall’s were demolished to make way for a new, larger store. Marshall’s was later acquired by Myer in 1928, and the site has remained central to Adelaide’s retail landscape ever since.

Today, the entrance to Myer in Rundle Mall is one of the city’s best-known meeting places yet few know they’re standing on the site of a once-rowdy pub that helped shape Adelaide’s early sporting and social culture.

Adelaide's Early Inns and Taverns

The "Globe," standing on the western corner of Rundle Street and Stephens Place ("Myer’s Corner”), was for many years one of the city’s few really first rate hotels. It was opened in 1845, and numerous alterations and additions were made as patronage demanded. During 1868 and 1869 it was converted into two stories, when little is said to have remained of the original small structure. Further improvements were carried out in the eighteen seventies. "Here," it is recorded in 1877. "sportsmen flock from all the country around. Here you may receive the straight tip for any forthcoming event, from the Melbourne Cup to the division on Mr. Playford’s motion of no confidence, and both from the very highest authorities." The hotel contained over forty rooms and suites. The "magnificent billiard saloon" was "in size and structure unapproached in the colony." A saloon of a different kind was also under the hotel’s management in Stephens Place, where "bivalves" could be "enjoyed to perfection." Considerable pride was taken in the extensiveness of the livery accommodation, where about fifty stalls were provided for the horses belonging to guests, together with ample cover for vehicles. A balcony, added to the building in 1898, somewhat softened the hotel’s rather grim appearance.

On Christmas Day. 1907, the hotel ceased business and its demolition commenced. In the following year the large store now on the site was opened as an extension of the business of Messrs. James Marshall & Co. (now the Myer Emporium).

Adelaide's Early Inns and Taverns
J. McLellan
1941

Logo

1893
State Library [PRG 631/2/440]
Click here for a high resolution image

GLOBE HOTEL

About Beer Adelaide

Contact Me