The Melbourne CBD is famous for its laneways, and they give the city a distinctive flavour. Many of the inner suburbs also have laneways running along the rear of properties. Originally included to allow service deliveries, access to stables and servant entrances at the back of houses. They were also built at a time of outhouses. The nightman used the laneways to collect the pans of waste. Mum remembers the days of the nightman with his horse and cart and also the milk being delivered by horse and cart as well. Our previous house in Canterbury originally had laneways included in the subdivision but the one behind our house had been sold off to adjacent property owners. This has happened in many suburbs with houses on large blocks that don’t need to rear access anymore. While running and walking every street in Brighton, Elwood and Gardenvale some of my running included named laneways, especially in Elwood, but there are also a reasonable number of surviving laneways in Brighton as well.

There are also laneways in Brighton made for pedestrians to cut through from one street to the next, or more often, through to the beach.

Does your town or city have areas with rear service access like this?