27/05/2026
Don't drive past the Greendale Pub without stopping. Here's why.
Most people have never heard of Greendale, Victoria. It sits about an hour west of Melbourne in the rolling hills between Bacchus Marsh and Ballan. Population: small. Pub: magnificent.
The Greendale Hotel has been standing since 1876, built during the gold rush when miners and travellers were making the long haul between Melbourne and Ballarat and needed somewhere to stop and breathe. Not much has changed, except the horses out front have mostly gone.
This tiny town produced a Premier of Victoria. John Cain was born in Greendale in 1882, grew up as the son of an Irish-born hill farmer, ran away from home at fourteen with little formal education, and eventually became the first Labor leader to win a majority in the Victorian parliament. His son later became Premier too. Two Premiers. One small town. One pub that was probably there for both of them.
Then in 2005, Paramount Pictures showed up.
They were looking for somewhere that looked like rural America for the live-action film of Charlotte's Web — the classic children's story with Dakota Fanning and Julia Roberts as the voice of Charlotte the spider. The rolling green hills of Greendale, with its oaks and poplars and wide open farms, looked more like rural Maine than almost anywhere else they'd found in the world. The whole town became a film set.
And through all of it — the gold rush, the premiers, the film crews and the Hollywood piglets — the Greendale Pub just kept serving cold beer and old-fashioned country meals to anyone who pulled up a stool.
Some places just quietly get on with it.
📍 The Greendale Pub, 3 Greendale-Myrniong Road, Greendale VIC. Est. 1876.
Have you been? Drop your story below. 🍺
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