Queen Victoria Market

The Queen Victoria Market (also known as the Queen Vic Markets or the Queen Vic, and locally as Vic Market) is a major landmark in Melbourne, Australia, and at around seven hectares (17 acres) is the largest open air market in the Southern Hemisphere. The Market is significant to Melbourne's culture and heritage and has been listed on the Victorian Heritage Register. The Market is not named after Queen Victoria, but instead gets its name from its location on the corner of Queen and Victoria Streets, Melbourne.

The Queen Victoria Market is the only surviving 19th century market in the Melbourne central business district. There were once three major markets in the Melbourne CBD, but two of them, the Eastern Market and Western Market, both opened before the Queen Victoria, closed in the 1960s. It also forms part of an important collection of surviving Victorian markets which includes the inner suburban Prahran Market and South Melbourne Market.

Since its conception in 1878, Queen Victoria Market has had a colourful and varied history. The site has been a cemetery, a livestock market and a wholesale fruit and vegetable market. Each of these operations has its own vibrant history.

The Western Market was Melbourne’s first official fruit and vegetable market, established a mere 6 years after settlement began. Ultimately a wholesale cased fruit market, it lasted for ninety years taking up the entire block bounded by Market, Collins and Williams Streets and Flinders Lane in the middle of Melbourne’s central business district.

The further development and expansion of Melbourne to the east led to the establishment of the Eastern Market. Much more popular than the Western Market, the Eastern Market was heavily frequented by the general public. Its growth over time and public popularity led to the decline of the Western Market.

The land on which the Market now exists was once part of the Old Melbourne Cemetery. Between 1837 and 1854, a large portion of the land, an estimated 10,000 early settlers (including explorer John Batman) were buried on the site. When the Market was expanded upon the site of the original cemetery in 1917, 914 bodies were exhumed and re-buried in other cemeteries around Melbourne. Around 9,000 bodies still remain buried below the car park of the Market.

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