The Apollo Bay Hotel has sat in this Great Ocean Road village for almost the entire time since Apollo Bay was established as a township.
The original Apollo Bay Hotel was built in 1885, 32 years after the township was surveyed and named Middleton before being known as Kambruk.
The hotel was originally named Kambruk Public Hall. The town became known as Apollo Bay in 1898.
The hotel’s first owner James Gosney – who had the Lorne Hotel in 1881 – walked with his eldest son around the coast to Apollo Bay, well before the Great Ocean Road had been built, as Jan Lewis of the Apollo Bay Historical Society writes in “The Bottom Pub, The Top Pub: A History of Apollo Bay’s Hotels.”
With timber cutters working the area and businesses growing along the main road, Gosney saw the potential in building a hotel which included accommodation rooms.
The first Apollo Bay Hotel had 30 rooms and remained virtually unaltered for 70 years.
The township had begun developing in the 1860s when land around Apollo Bay became available for farming. By the mid 1870s the first township blocks were offered for sale. In 1886 Gosney was granted a licence for a hotel to be called Kambruk Hall. He soon changed the name to the Apollo Bay Hotel.
In settlement towns of the mid-late 1800s hotels played a crucial role as the centre of the community. The Apollo Bay Hotel included a store and the post office. The telegraph operated from the hotel until it later moved to Nelson Street.
The township grew when a coach service between Apollo Bay and the township of Birregurra – initiated by James Gosney and John Johnston – began operating in 1889 drawing people into the town.
In 1901 the hotel was purchased by Mrs A. E. Cawood, who ran it until 1905 when it was acquired by the Pengilley family. As Jan Lewis notes, William Pengilley had been the licensee at The Railway Hotel in the nearby township of Forrest for 13 years before buying the hotel. William Pengilley and his wife Caroline ran the hotel until 1926.
Mrs Pen, as she was known, was “behind the smooth running of the hotel”. “Mrs Pen was known to keep her eye on the young men coming into the pub after the rough work timber cutting or on the roads,” Lewis writes. “Her firm but kindly handling of the ‘tearaways’ resulted in her being called ‘Mother’ by some.”
The Apollo Bay Hotel was known for its excellent meals. “(It) had its own vegetable garden and the meat came from Costin’s the butchers who grew their own meat… A cow would provide fresh milk and cream and butter was churned on the premises.”
It was during World War 1 that Mrs Pen was known for great kindness towards people needing a hand.
“In times of crisis a local hotel is often a refuge or gathering place for the community,” writes Lewis. “With the outbreak of the First World War Mrs Pen was tireless in taking on patriotic activities for the Red Cross. She kept an open house for departing and returning soldiers. She would write letters to many of those single young men who had frequented the hotel but had no families of their own.”
The Pengilley’s children later wrote of their days growing up in the pub, providing extraordinary detail of day-to-day life 100 years ago.
Their daughter Laura Pengilly lived in the hotel, went to school at the Apollo Bay School and later trained as a teacher. She spent many years teaching at the Apollo Bay School.
Laura later wrote about the early years living in the hotel including two draft horses, Mack and Jack. “Mack was well-known by the neighbours for his ability to open gates and feed room doors,” she wrote.
Lewis writes that another daughter, Kath, later wrote that her kindly mother took care of the welfare of coach drivers. She wrote: ‘There was one room in the pub which was the coachman’s room. Come hell or high water that was his, coachman stayed put and there could be no re-arrangements of his room to accommodate the summer visitors.”
When coachmen had cracked and sore hands in winter time, Mrs Pen “always had mutton fat (uncooked) or him to run into his hands and ease them,” Kath wrote. “How those coachmen could ever get harnesses up in the winter when it would be pitch dark. It would all have to be done with the light from a hurricane lamp. Mum would have a good hot breakfast – porridge, bacon and eggs, plenty of hot, buttered toast, to start them on their way.”
Kath added that the girls often had to bunk in together to provide extra rooms for paying guests.
In 1932 the hotel played a role in helping the community after disaster struck.
For 50 years an iron steamship called The S.S. Casino took cargo and passengers between Melbourne and Portland, stopping at Apollo Bay, Warrnambool and Port Fairy. The SS Casino had tremendous historical significance and played a vital role in the Western District coastal and passenger trade.
On 10 July 1932, while trying to secure a mooring at Apollo Bay pier, the ship sank.
On that terrible day 10 of the passengers and crew lost their lives, despite local farmers charging into the surf on their horses in an attempt to save some of the stricken.
An Australian Government site tells us more:
“The Casino approached the pier in a heavy swell, but struck the bottom several times… An attempt was made to beach the Casino, but it heeled over and capsized about 400 metres from the shore.
“Over a number of hours, and as the easterly wind picked up after lunch, distressed Apollo Bay locals could only watch as the crew and passengers struggled for their lives, attempting either to swim ashore or cling to the upturned hull of the Casino.”
Local farmers rushed to the scene to help. Lewis writes that one farmer, Frank Martin, was “one of the first into the surf on his pony and succeeded in rescuing [two crew]. He plunged into the surf again to [rescue the Purser] but he was swept from his pony and only reached the shore with great difficulty. His pony was washed in after him.”
Rescued passengers and crew were brought to the two hotels in the town. “Both hotels in Apollo Bay opened their doors to those rescued [offering] comfort, meals and for some a bed,” Lewis writes.
The Apollo Bay Hotel maintains a strong connection with the shipwreck. The steering wheel and port and starboard lights are on display at the Apollo Bay Hotel and the anchor is on display outside the Apollo Bay Post Office.
Many years later, in the 1960s and ‘70s the hotel – offering accommodation, drinks and meals – now offered entertainment including on two special evenings when bands The Zoot and Max Merritt and the Meteors performed at the Apollo Bay Hotel.
Today, 139 years after it was established, the hotel proudly embraces its history. It acknowledges the incident of 1932 with its function space named the Casino Room and plans to decorate its walls with historic photos of the hotel.
New generations have embraced the hotel. It is often visited as a stepping-off point for a visit to The Twelve Apostles further along the Great Ocean Road. And it holds a special place in the Great Ocean Road Marathon held each May by serving as the marathon’s finish line.
The Apollo Bay Hotel and remains a much-loved icon of the town. For 139 years it has been where stories are told.
It has many more to tell.
