“The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there,” wrote English author L.P. Hartley in The Go-Between (1953). Modern Melburnians may feel the same. But while they live with an increasing cityscape of skyscrapers, the past is not far away.
Consider Scots Church in Collins Street. Its spire tip was for some time the highest point in the city, but now it is relatively low compared to surrounding buildings. The idea behind its vantage was different to modern planning decisions: it indicated the Presbyterians had a closeness to Heaven not possessed by other Christian denominations.
