Mount Macedon Memorial Cross Memorial Cross Loop Road Macedon Regional Park

The Memorial Cross is located north of the township of Macedon in Central Victoria, 65kms North-West of Melbourne.  It is immediately south of the Loop Road, at the southern end of Cameron Drive, accessed from Mount Macedon Road (C322).

It is considered by many to be Victoria’s most significant war memorial after the Shrine of Remembrance in Birdwood Avenue, Melbourne.  The Shrine of Remembrance was officially opened on 11th November 1934.

The original cross, its surrounding garden and access road, were financed by local resident William Cameron, an American citizen of Scottish parents who was associated for many years with the British Australasian Tobacco Company.  Cameron wished to provide a permanent memorial to the Australian servicemen and women who lost their lives in the Great War and, at the same time, to employ people who would be out of work during the Great Depression.

Cameron applied to the Victorian Forest Commission on 3rd June 1932 for permission to occupy a site near the summit to erect a memorial cross in the form of a simple Latin Cross to be lit at night and visible from Melbourne.  Construction began in 1932, with a steel frame onto which earthenware tiles manufactured by Wunderlich Pty Ltd were wired, to provide an attractive and allegedly weatherproof surface.

The Memorial Cross was dedicated by the Victorian Premier, Stanley Argyle, on 16th March 1935. 

The cross and the immediate Memorial Reserve were listed as an historic site on the Victorian Heritage Database on 1st September 1994 (No: 1027), and the site was officially declared a War Memorial Reserve on 11th November 1994.   However, the cross itself had become unsafe over time due to lightning strikes and bush fires - including the 1983 Ash Wednesday fires - and in 1995 had to be demolished and replaced.

Demolition began in March 1995 by the Melbourne construction company Grocon, owned by brothers Bruno and Rino Grollo.  The Grollo families funded both the demolition of the original cross and its replacement with a new reinforced concrete cross in late May 1995.

The replacement cross is an exact replica of the original, being 21m in height, with a plinth of 4.3m, and rests on a circular base of 11.5m in diameter.  The circular base is from the original construction.

The replacement cross was dedicated by the Governor of Victoria, the Honourable Richard McGarvie AC, on 19th November 1995.

• 1.‘Cross in Memory of Soldiers’, Argus, 18 March 1935, p.9 TROVE https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/508581