A community archive of Canberra & its neighboursPhotographs · Places · People
Lost. Canberra
Some places change.
The stories stay.
Braddon and Civic Centre from Mt Ainslie, Black Mountain at the rear.
Braddon and Civic Centre from Mt Ainslie, Black Mountain at the rear. Catalogue date: 1921–1935. National Archives of Australia, A3560, 6592 · Mildenhall collection · CC BY 3.0 AU.

From the photographic archive

Before the city
we know.

The streets we walk. The towns we pass. A little of what was here before us.

Look a little closer
Canberra, seen from Mount Ainslie.
Braddon and Civic, 1921–1935.

A little further afield

All 13 areas ↗
01 / NSW

Goulburn

An established regional centre whose railway buildings and steam waterworks preserve the machinery of nineteenth-century growth.

02 / NSW

Lake George

An Aboriginal cultural landscape and closed lake basin whose water levels preserve an unusually long record of wet and dry years.

03 / NSW

Yass

Cooma Cottage, the town tramway and a community archive reveal different sides of Yass's history.

04 / NSW

Bungendore

A station photograph with a rather unexpected cargo.

05 / NSW

Queanbeyan

Why Queanbeyan got a little more than a platform.

New in the archive

All stories ↗
An aerial view across Lake Burley Griffin, with the National Carillon in the foreground and the Captain Cook Memorial Jet beyond.

Lake Burley Griffin · c. 1970

The lake, before the trees filled in

A familiar sweep of water, with a much younger landscape around it.

Read the story ↗
Workers assembling Mercedes-Benz buses on a factory floor, with exposed chassis and partly completed bus bodies.

Canberra transport · photograph date unknown

Before the first passenger

Canberra’s city buses, still taking shape on a Melbourne factory floor.

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Monaro Mall seen from an upper level, with escalators, shoppers and tables on the tiled floor below.

City / Civic · the mall opened 6 March 1963

Meet you at Monaro Mall

Escalators, shopping bags and a prime minister who could barely hear the speeches.

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Hotel Ainslie’s pale walls and tiled roofs beyond open ground, with scattered buildings and hills in the distance.

Hotel Ainslie · catalogue range 1921–1935

Hotel Ainslie, before the city filled in

A substantial hotel, a road at its door, and room to see right across to the hills.

Read the story ↗

Your part of Canberra

District histories ↗
Woden ValleyWeston CreekBelconnenTuggeranongGungahlinMolonglo ValleyInner NorthInner SouthRural ACT

Out of the archives

Browse all stories ↗
J B Youngs store at Kingston with motor vehicles

Canberra / 1921–1935

A little shopping in Kingston

Cars at the kerb and the name J. B. Young’s above the shop.

Steamroller spraying tar in Mort Street, Canberra City.

Canberra / 1921–1935

The making of Mort Street

A steamroller, a road crew, and a street taking shape.

Intersection of Monaro and Crawford Streets, Queanbeyan.

Queanbeyan / 1921–1935

Meet you on the corner

Monaro and Crawford Streets, in the days of these motor cars.

One view. A different Canberra.

A city between
two photographs.

Look down from Mount Ainslie and watch the decades shift. An archival photograph from 1921–1935 meets Rob Woodall’s view from Anzac Day 2011.

Explore historic places and photo comparisons on our map of Canberra and its neighbours.

Explore the history map ↗

The later photograph is from 2011. For the latest available view, use the Street View link on the map.

View from Mount Ainslie down Anzac Parade, Canberra, rephotographed 25 April 2011View from Mount Ainslie down Anzac Parade, Canberra, 1921–1935
1921–193525 April 2011

Historical: National Archives of Australia, A3560, 908. Rephotograph: Rob Woodall, 25 April 2011. Both CC BY 3.0 AU. Framing differs; this is a comparison, not an exact overlay.

Kept alive by the people who remember

You might know
the missing bit.

A shop name. A face in the crowd. The year your family arrived. Around 3,000 people follow Lost Canberra on Facebook, and the comments often become part of the story.

Join the conversation ↗Share a memory