This insightful instalment of the Heritage Address features writer, historian and curator Robyn Annear as she delves into the formative history of Melbourne’s laneways and the shadow network they weave through the city blocks.

Once a laneway-sceptic, Annear reveals how the ‘City of Lanes’ rapidly evolved from Robert Hoddle’s orderly town grid, defined by broad, straight, surveillable streets and judiciously regulated allotments, into a web of passages stitched between what was meant to be seen.