The Royal
Queenscliff is a small town on the Bellarine Peninsula in southern Victoria, Australia, south of Swan Bay at the entrance to Port Phillip.
The Royal Hotel in Queenscliff was built in 1854 by Irish immigrant William Leihy a Borough Councillor who bought the land in an area that was then out of town in the hope that the town would grow and surround him. He also owned a hotel in Geelong.The hotel was the first of a group of grand hotels built in the mid to late 1800s to cater for tourists who travelled down from Melbourne on large steamers. The trip taking about two hours. The hotel originally featured 54 rooms.
The Royal is a truely majestic hotel whose decorative wrought iron work, colonades and tower make it a landmark building that is visible to all ships that enter Port Phillip Bay though the trecherous Rip.
