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“Villa Alba” is situated at the corner of Walmer Street and Nolan Avenue in Studley Park, in the exclusive inner Melbourne suburb of Kew.

In 1862, the daughter of wealthy squatter James McEvoy, Anna Maria McEvoy, married the general manager of Colonial Bank Australasia, William Greenlaw. As a wedding gift, James placed a trust for Anna Maria of “Studley Villa” a single storey Italianate villa amid grounds of about one third of a hectare on the corner of Walmer Street and Nolan Avenue. James himself lived at the larger Italianate mansion of “Studley House” which he had acquired in 1860. “Studley House” adjoinined the “Studley Villa” property.

In 1881, the Greenlaw family demolished the existing house whose name had changed from “Studley Villa” to” Villa Alba” in 1870.
Built in 1882 on the same site as the old villa, “Villa Alba” is two storeys with a single storey section at the rear. It has rendered masonry walls with ruled ashlar markings and a hipped slate roof with bracketed eaves and tall chimney stacks. There is a central front tower of three storeys with a balustraded top and flagpole. All the windows have arched tops and moulded surrounds and there is massive rendered quoining at the corners of the building and the projecting tower. The entrance is up steps to a central front porch located at the base of the tower and the main rooms are behind the faceted bay windows at either side. The single storey wing houses the service areas and is nestled into the hillside behind a retaining wall.

It is the interior of “Villa Alba” which is of particular significance as when the house was remodelled in 1883 William Greenlaw employed Melbourne's foremost firm of artistic house painters and decorators, the Paterson Brothers (Charles, James and Hugh), to paint lavish finishes using stencils, gilding and hand painting on both ground and first floors. In “Villa Alba” at least three main artists were employed and something like thirty different frieze patterns were used in the rooms. The painting schemes are both rich in tone with soft colours and delicate in detail with much use of stencilling rather than wallpapers. Much of the technique of painting used is very complex and included not only stencilling but also chalked pounce outlines with hand painting to merge colours. There are also large areas exhibiting freehand painting. There are a great variety of scenes with both stylised garlands, ribbons, festoons, ribbons and cherubs in the French style of art, as well as panoramic scenes of Sydney Harbour and Edinburgh, Scotland and references to Sir Walter Scott's novels. In the hall frieze, putti can be seen engaged in activities such as photography or cricket. The interior decoration includes ornamental pediments over the timber doors, ornate ceiling cornices, ceiling roses and tiled fireplaces with marble mantles. There is some use of parquet flooring. Complementary and luxurious furniture was also commissioned for “Villa Alba's” decoration.

William Greenlaw's penchant for luxury and speculation on the share market to finance his lifestyle finally exceeded his judgement and skill. In 1893 he was declared bankrupt. As “Villa Alba” was not in his name, the family’s occupation of the property was not initially affected by their reduced circumstances. Following her husband’s death in 1895 Anna Maria Greenlaw sold the contents of the house in a two-day sale in 1897 and leased the house. In 1913, Melbourne businessman Samuel Fripp and his family moved in as Anna Maria’s tenants and remained so until her death in 1918. The house remained in the Greenlaw family’s ownership until 1933 when it became the property of Samuel Fripp. When Samuel died in 1936, his sons retained ownership of the house until 1949. “Villa Alba” was finally purchased by the Royal Women's Hospital in 1949 and the Henry Pride Centre of the hospital was built on “Villa Alba's” beautiful gardens along Nolan Avenue.

Most of “Villa Alba’s” original outbuildings and almost the entire original garden have been destroyed through development of hospital buildings crowding the main house. At first the villa was used as a nurses' home but was evacuated when cracks appeared in the walls during the building of a new nurses' home adjacent to it. “Villa Alba” was used for several years as accommodation for the caretaker of the Henry Pride hospital.

In 1984 the Kew Council, with the support of Mount Royal Hospital, the owners of “Villa Alba”, established a preservation committee. The following year, the hospital granted a twenty-five year lease to the Kew Council (later the Boroondara Council) for the historic house and some land. By 1996 the committee had resolved to establish a museum and resource centre of Nineteenth Century interior decoration at “Villa Alba”. In 1999 after passing through the hands of several hospitals, “Villa Alba” was sold by the St Georges and Inner Eastern Healthcare Network to the Society of Jesus for the use of Xa

We found two of these creatures on the sand at Antechamber Bay, Kangaroo Island, as shown on the map.

They were stranded at the high tide mark, several metres above the then low tide, within 25 metres of the rocky outcrop at the Northern point of the Bay.

Not knowing whether they were free swimming creatures or burrowers of some kind we left the one which was still alive where it was.

Thinking one was dead, and not having good enough light to photograph it in situ, I took one back to the house.

The following morning, as I moved it into good light I realised there was some slight response to my touch and so placed it on a flat surface and sprinkled some (fresh) water onto it. I hadn't thought to take some sea water.

These first four photos are the result.

We put a thin layer of water onto a plate and watched, astonished as it began to move quite purposefully from the centre of the plate to the outside edge and then over the edge, lifting (what we assumed to be) its "head" end and turning definitely left (away from the sunlight) and and then slightly towards the sunlight, before proceeding down over the edge of the plate onto the timber table.

We returned it to the plate and after some minutes it expelled a dark liquid which shot about 15 - 20 cms from its body and fell past the ledge of the table and in spots onto the floor.

We added a little more water and it expelled two more "bursts" of the dark brown liquid into the water.

After taking a series of pictures at very quick intervals (which make a staccato "movie" of its movements as described) we took it back to the beach.

We had a copy of Dakin's Seashores of Australia (details later) which made us think it a sea cucumber and likely to try to burrow near the rocks, so that's where we returned it