Mentone Beach is a beach located in Mentone, on

Port Phillip Bay Port Phillip ( Kulin: ''Narm-Narm'') or Port Phillip Bay is a horsehead-shaped enclosed bay on the central coast of southern Victoria, Australia. The bay opens into the Bass Strait via a short, narrow channel known as The Rip, and is comple ...

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...

, Australia, 21 kilometres south from the

Melbourne City Centre The Melbourne central business district (colloquially known as "the City" or "the CBD", and gazetted simply as Melbourne) is the city centre of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. As of the 2021 census, the CBD had a population of 54,941, and is ...

. Mentone beach is the northern section of a beach that extends alongside

Beaumaris Bay Beaumaris Bay ( ) is a short but wide bay within the eastern shore of Port Phillip Bay in southern Victoria, Australia. It commences at the cliffs of Rickett's Point in the southern end of the Melbourne suburb of Beaumaris, then recesses north b ...

from the cliffs at Rickett's Point in

Beaumaris Beaumaris (; ) is a town and community (Wales), community on the Anglesey, Isle of Anglesey in Wales, of which it is the former county town. It is located at the eastern entrance to the Menai Strait, the tidal waterway separating Anglesey fro ...

to Frankston in the south on the eastern shoreline of Port Phillip Bay. Mentone Beach is one of the Port Phillip Bay beaches associated with the

Heidelberg School The Heidelberg School was an Australian art movement of the late 19th century. It has been described as Australian impressionism. Melbourne art critic Sidney Dickinson coined the term in an 1891 review of works by Arthur Streeton and Walter ...

of Australian artists.

Geology

Mentone Beach was formed when Port Phillip sunklands in southern Victoria were inundated to form Port Phillip Bay. The inundation was triggered in part by the Selwyn Fault on the east and the Rowsley Fault on the west side of the bay. The Beaumaris

Monocline A monocline (or, rarely, a monoform) is a step-like fold in rock strata consisting of a zone of steeper dip within an otherwise horizontal or gently dipping sequence. Formation Monoclines may be formed in several different ways (see diagram) ...

is a geological feature which is expressed in the cliffs near Beaumaris and Rickett's Point at the northern end of Mentone Beach. This structure controls the coastal indentation, and therefore the Mentone and Mordialloc beaches, which lie due south of Rickett's Point. Seagull rock is a large rock in the shallow water off the beach. It is home to albatrosses, cormorants and seagulls. OzCoast, the

Geoscience Australia Geoscience Australia is a statutory agency of the Government of Australia that carries out geoscientific research. The agency is the government's technical adviser on aspects of geoscience, and serves as the repository of geographic and geolo ...

Online Coastal Information Database, describes Mentone Beach as:

Aboriginal history

Prior to European settlement the area around Mentone Beach was the land of the

Bunurong people The Boonwurrung, also spelt Bunurong or Bun wurrung, are an Aboriginal people of the Kulin nation, who are the traditional owners of the land from the Werribee River to Wilsons Promontory in the Australian state of Victoria. Their territory in ...

of the

Kulin nation The Kulin nation is an alliance of five Aboriginal nations in the south of Australia - up into the Great Dividing Range and the Loddon and Goulburn River valleys - which shares Culture and Language. History Before British colonisation, the ...

. Between 1839 and 1849 the Bunurong people and the area around Mentone Beach came under the control of the Port Phillip Protectorate.

European history

In the summer of 1886 and 1887

Tom Roberts Thomas William Roberts (8 March 185614 September 1931) was an English-born Australian artist and a key member of the Heidelberg School art movement, also known as Australian impressionism. After studying in Melbourne, he travelled to Europe i ...

and

Frederick McCubbin Frederick McCubbin (25 February 1855 – 20 December 1917) was an Australian artist, art teacher and prominent member of the Heidelberg School art movement, also known as Australian impressionism. Born and raised in Melbourne, Victoria, McCubb ...

who had formed the

of painting set up a painters camp at Mentone to paint outdoors. It was here they first met

Arthur Streeton Sir Arthur Ernest Streeton (8 April 1867 – 1 September 1943) was an Australian landscape painter and a leading member of the Heidelberg School, also known as Australian Impressionism. Early life Streeton was born in Mount Moriac, Victoria ...

painting at Rickett's Point. Roberts later described the meeting and his first impressions of Streeton, "'He was standing out on the wet rocks, painting there, and I saw that his work was full of light and air. We asked him to join us and that was the beginning of a long and delightful association." A number of significant and important Australian painting resulted from the Heidelberg School camps in and around Mentone Beach. File:Tom Roberts - Slumbering sea, Mentone - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Slumbering Sea, Mentone'' 1887, oil on canvas by

File:Frederick McCubbin - Moyes Bay Beaumaris.jpg, ''Moyes Bay, Beaumaris'', 1887, oil on canvas by

File:Charles Conder - A holiday at Mentone - Google Art Project.jpg, '' A holiday at Mentone'', 1888, oil on canvas by

Charles Conder Charles Edward Conder (24 October 1868 – 9 February 1909) was an English-born painter, lithographer and designer. He emigrated to Australia and was a key figure in the Heidelberg School, arguably the beginning of a distinctively Australi ...

In the late 1800s Mentone was founded as a resort town with the beach as one of the main attractions. The

Mentone railway station Mentone railway station is a commuter railway station on the Frankston line, which is part of the Melbourne railway network. It serves the south-eastern suburb of Mentone, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Mentone station is a below ground ...

, opened in 1881, provided access from the city of Melbourne. In 1884 an enclosed sea baths were built at Mentone Beach by the National Land Company to attract holiday makers and to boost real estate sales. Men and women used the sea baths at different times with coloured flags, white for women and red for men, indicating which gender was allowed to use the facilities. Between 1891 and 1964 there was also a pier located at the bottom of Naples Road that stretched over 100 metres out to sea. Mentone Beach Victoria

The Mentone Lifesaving Club was formed in 1920 when the newly created

City of Mordialloc The City of Mordialloc was a Local government in Australia, local government area about south of Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, on the eastern side of Port Phillip. The city covered an area of , and e ...

(now the

City of Kingston The City of Kingston is a local government area in Victoria, Australia in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne, its northern boundary lying approximately 15 km from the Melbourne city centre along the north-eastern shorelines of Port P ...

) donated two bathing boxes to the newly formed Mentone Swimming and Life Saving Club on the site to the south of the former Mentone Pier.

References

{{Authority control Beaches of Victoria (state) Port Phillip