Princes Pier, Port Melbourne
Princes Pier in Port Melbourne is a heritage-listed structure adjacent to Station Pier. The railway lines used to down the centre connecting it to the Port Melbourne Rail line. For this reason, it was initially named New Railway Pier.
Wartime Use
The pier opened on 29 September 1914. Significantly, the first Australian convoy carried troops to fight in WW1 left from its newly completed first section. Many of the soldiers who returned to Melbourne at the end of the war also disembarked at Princes Pier.

In honour of the royal visit by the Prince of Wales, it was renamed Princes Pier in 1921. The pier’s iconic two-level timber Gatehouse was added in 1935. This enabled better monitoring of cargo and traffic on and off of the dock.
The pier was also the departure point for Australian troops and the arrival point for the American forces during the Second World War. In the years following the end of WW2, it became the first landing point in Australia for post-war migrants along with Station Pier. Subsequently, over one million migrants landed there between 1947 and 1969.
Declining Years
The last migrant ships arrived in 1969. Additionally, with the shift to containers and the massive containerships being too big to berth at the pier, the dock was used less and less. Eventually, this led to Princes Pier being decommissioned in 1985. Over the next two decades, it deteriorated severely. In 2006 the Victorian Government committed $34 million to its restoration. The existing deck structure was removed. One hundred ninety-six metres of the pier were reconstructed, incuding repairing defective timber piles to support a new concrete deck. The gatehouse was refurbished, and a forest of piles was created at the seaward end of the pier in order to create a heritage and sculptural centrepiece. Today it’s a favourite spot for fishermen and photographers alike.



