{"id":158308,"date":"2025-09-21T07:14:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T07:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/158308\/"},"modified":"2025-09-21T07:14:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T07:14:09","slug":"vandals-deface-melbournes-hochgurtel-fountain-and-turn-water-bright-red","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/158308\/","title":{"rendered":"Vandals deface Melbourne&#8217;s Hochgurtel Fountain and turn water bright red"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A\ufeffn investigation is under way after a World Heritage-listed fountain in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.9news.com.au\/melbourne\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\" Melbourne&#039;s\">Melbourne&#8217;s<\/a> north was vandalised.<\/p>\n<p>The Hochgurtel Fountain outside the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton Gardens was defaced with graffiti and the water was turned bright red, police said.<\/p>\n<p>Red paint was also splashed onto figurines in the middle of the fountain.\ufeff<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/aa9b2214-5cb4-4f9f-8a12-a8f8f833f118.png\"   alt=\"Hochgurtel fountain Carlton Gardens Melbourne\"\/>The Hochgurtel Fountain outside the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton Gardens was defaced with graffiti. (Victoria Police)<\/p>\n<p>Police allege unknown offenders targeted the fountain on Nicholson Street sometime between 6pm on Friday and 6am today.\ufeff<\/p>\n<p>City of Melbourne officials were alerted to the vandalism.<\/p>\n<p>A council team has since cleaned the graffiti and drained the red water.\ufeff<\/p>\n<p>Police are hoping to speak to any witnesses or anyone who was in the area between Friday and today.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/37c56870-d1e0-423f-91cc-a5a167b8145c.png\"   alt=\"Hochgurtel fountain Carlton Gardens Melbourne\"\/>City of Melbourne officials were alerted to the vandalism on Saturday morning.\ufeff (Victoria Police)<\/p>\n<p>\ufeffAnyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.<\/p>\n<p>The Hochgurtel Fountain, built in 1880, stands 10-metres tall and was constructed ahead of Melbourne&#8217;s first international world fair.<\/p>\n<p>It underwent a major restoration in 1994.\ufeff<\/p>\n<p>The Royal Exhibition Building and the surrounding Carlton Gardens was granted listing as a World Heritage Site in 2004.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A\ufeffn investigation is under way after a World Heritage-listed fountain in Melbourne&#8217;s north was vandalised. The Hochgurtel Fountain&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158309,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-158308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}