FORMER VICTORIA POLICE DEPOT
234 ST KILDA ROAD,1-39 DODDS STREET AND 148-170 SOUTHBANK BOULEVARD, SOUTHBANK, MELBOURNE CITY
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Statement of Significance
The Former Victoria Police Depot, including the Stables, the Riding School, and Drill Hall (1912-13), Police Hospital and Dispensers Residence (1914) , Police Stores and Workshop, (c.1916-20), Police Barracks (1925 ) and Rough Riders Residence (1929) , was constructed between 1912 and 1929 as the headquarters for police training and mounted police operations in Victoria. The building resulted from the Federal Government's decision to establish the Victoria Barracks as the headquarters for the newly formed Commonwealth Department of Defence in 1906. As the Victoria Police had occupied a significant proportion of the Barracks since 1881, provisions were made by the Government to relocate the Police to the nearby St Kilda Road site. The St. Kilda Road site of the former Barracks has important associations with the history of Melbourne as the location of Canvas Town in 1852-54 and the Immigrants Home from 1856-1914. The Victorian College of the Arts began occupying the police buildings on the site from 1973. They subsequently erected substantial buildings and now occupy all the site except the Police Stables which remain in their original use by the Police as the Operational Headquarters for Mounted Police in Victoria. The whole of the land is significant as the curtilage of the island site of the Victoria Police Depot notwithstanding the buildings which have been erected or modified by the Victoria College of the Arts.
How is it significant?
The former Victoria Police Depot is architecturally and historically important to the state of Victoria.
Why is it significant?
The Former Victoria Police Depot is historically significant as a police training establishment of the early twentieth century and a police hospital. The Former Police Depot demonstrates the association of the site with the Victoria Police and in particular the Mounted Police Branch since 1912. The St. Kilda Road site of the former Depot has important associations with the history of Melbourne as the location of Canvas Town in 1852-54 and the Immigrants Home from 1856-1914.
The Police Barracks within the Police Depot (now the Administration Building for the Victorian College of the Arts) is historically significant for its association to the police strike of November 1923 and subsequent Royal Commission in 1924, which found that many police barracks and stations provided poor living conditions for officers. As a result, the old Immigrants Home buildings previously used by the Police recruits were demolished and construction of the new barracks was commenced. The new building set new standards for the accommodation of recruits with the provision of comfortable living conditions and recreational grounds and facilities.
The former Rough Riders' Residence within the Police Depot is historically significant as a representative example of a police residence, but also as one for a special use as it was erected to accommodate those involved with breaking in new horses acquired for police work.
The Police Depot is architecturally significant in providing an extremely rare and unique solution to the institution's requirements. The architectural form of the stables, riding school and drill hall demonstrates the reliance on the horse as a means of transport for police work at that time. The combination of stables, octagonal entrance hall, riding school and drill hall was regarded with pride at the time it was built. The Stables is one of the largest stable buildings to have been constructed and to still remain in metropolitan Melbourne. The original design for the Riding School and former Drill Hall was for one large open space divided in the centre by a mezzanine viewing platform. The Riding School is located in the wing extending east from the octagonal entrance hall.
The former Police Hospital is historically and architecturally significant as the first purpose-built Police Hospital to be constructed in Victoria and one of the few Police buildings to still remain in metropolitan Melbourne. Its design was based on the pavilion principle, which expressed the late nineteenth and early twentieth century attitudes to hospital design. The design was intended to provide ample sunlight and ventilation for the convalescing patients, and included a two-levelled verandah on the north and south elevations. The hospital building included a dispensary, reflecting the function carried out by the dispenser in medical practice at that time. The hospital also included a single storey operating theatre attached to the western end of the building. The associated former Dispenser's Residence remains virtually intact. It is significant in medical history as it demonstrates the role of the dispenser in the early twentieth century medicine, in providing 24 hour medical assistance to the Police Hospital. The Rough Riders' Residence is historically significant in the history of mounted police in Victoria, as it is contemptoraneous with the continuing training of police horses on this site in the period after the introduction of motor transport to police work. In the twentieth century the emphasis was changed from general transport use in city and rural areas. Horses had to be trained for ceremonial work and the control of hostile crowds, a use which continues to be necessary today. The police stores and workshop buildings as remaining elements of the entire complex help link the buildings and contribute to an understanding of the historical use and appearance of the site.
The former Police Barracks is architecturally significant as a notable example of the Georgian Revival style which developed in Australia during the early twentieth century. The building is a rare example of the combination of this building type with the Georgian Revival style, as it was an aesthetic usually reserved for private residences or commercial buildings such as banks and offices. The design of the former Police Barracks is a major example of the work of the architect, E. Evan Smith. As Chief Architect of the Public Works Department from 1922-1929, Smith was responsible for many buildings, none of which were as controversial or publicly discussed as this. Smith's signature style of Georgian Revival also forms an important part of Australia's architectural history as it was the first time that an earlier style practised in this country was revived.
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FORMER VICTORIA POLICE DEPOT - History
Contextual History:
History
The Site & Buildings
The site of the former South Melbourne Police Depot is bounded by St. Kilda Road, Southbank Boulevard, Dodds Street and Grant Street. The area has been gradually taken over by the Victorian College of the Arts since 1973. However, the Victorian Police still occupy the Stables and the Riding School in the south west corner of the site.
Aboriginal Use
The study area lies within the tribal territory of the Woiworung or Wurundjeri people. The territory of the Wurundjeri has been described as all the land drained by the river Yarra and its tributaries.
Until 5000 or 6000 years ago, the Port Phillip Bay coastline was roughly along the line of St Kilda Road. It is likely that Aboriginal people used the bay foreshore and waters for fish, shellfish and plants. When the water level fell, the swampy areas around Albert Park and South Melbourne were exposed. The swamps contained eels which the Aborigines caught at certain times of the year. Birds and water fowl were plentiful around the swamp land, providing food for the Aborigines.
The area selected by the first settlers for the town of Melbourne was the place used for intertribal gatherings of the Kulin, the confederacy of tribes occupying the Port Phillip area.
Agriculture and Brick making
The first known use of the site by European settlers of the land on
the west side of St Kilda Road was for agriculture and brick making. The brick fields extended from the Government House reserve to the base of Emerald Hill. Garryowen claimed that they were “the resort of a drunken, bloodthirsty, thieving crew”.
Stage 1 1850s-1914
Canvas Town and the Immigrants’ Home
When gold was discovered in Victoria in December 1851, the resulting influx of population could not be accommodated in Melbourne. The government established two ‘Immigrants’ Homes’. In November 1852 the Public Houseless Immigrants Home opened on the Government Reserve south of the Yarra. The government also leased a building at the foot of Batman’s Hill which had been the city abattoirs. It was subdivided into fifty small rooms to accommodate 200 people. There was a charge of one shilling a night per head for lodging in this establishment. In addition two acres of land on the south side of the Yarra were covered with wooden buildings to take in 400 to 500 people. These measures were inadequate to cope with the vast numbers needing accommodation. The Immigrants Aid Society was founded in May 1853 to help “the fearful distress amongst the newly arrived population”. It urged the government to take further steps to help the new arrivals.
Lieutenant-Governor La Trobe also set aside land on the west side of St. Kilda Road for those with tents across the river from Melbourne. The settlement quickly filled up with tent-dwellers and became known as Canvas Town. (Fig. 1)
By the end of the year ‘Canvas Town’ held over seven thousand people paying 5s per week, and tradesmen of all kinds had moved in to supply local needs. Men lived there in conditions corresponding to their natures, in reasonable extemporized comfort or in squalor and filth... Many of the residents were the poverty-stricken families of those trying their luck on the fields, ‘forlorn, wretched, outcast’. Many had pitched their tents on swampy ground and paid the penalty, for in the summer the encampment was swept with low fever, ague and children’s diseases.
Canvas Town stretched for about a mile along the western side of St Kilda Road, south of City Road. The government closed down its immigrants’ institutions in 1854 and Canvas Town in the same year.
The Immigrants Aid Society took over the buildings on the east side of St Kilda Road in 1855, paying the government £1000 raised by public subscription.(Fig. 2) However the government soon took back the site of the Immigrants Homes to house the 40th regiment which was transferred from Sydney to Melbourne. The inmates of the Immigrants Home were then moved across to the west side of St Kilda Road. Six years later, the military moved out and the buildings were returned to the Society.
The Society found themselves providing accommodation for the destitute in a casual ward. If the same person returned night after night to the casual ward, they were admitted to a permanent ward where inmates had to contribute their labour in return for their board and lodging. Men worked at oakum picking or stone breaking and women did sewing and washing and other household tasks. The Society also established a hospital for destitute persons who were discharged from the Melbourne Hospital, either to convalesce or to die. By 1868, on the west side of St. Kilda Road there was “an auxiliary establishment including a good brick building used as a hospital and a handsome cottage, the residence of the efficient Superintendent of the Home, Mr. J. S. Greig.”
The Society took on a number of other functions as time went on. One of these was to educate children who came into the Home.
The construction of Government House completed in 1876 was the impetus to tidy up the straggling buildings on the east side of St. Kilda Road. It was decided that the brick buildings could be allowed to remain if they were hidden by trees. The wooden buildings on both sides of St. Kilda Road were demolished. The Women’s Department stayed in the brick building on the east side of St. Kilda Road. The Male Hospital was on the west side and the Casuals were accommodated in the Military Barracks still on the east side. In 1882, the Male Division moved to Royal Park. By February 1914 all trace of the Immigrants Home was removed from the east side of St. Kilda Road when the Female Division also moved to Royal Park. The Casuals Ward was moved to La Trobe Street, leaving a brick Immigrants Home building on the west side. (Fig.3)
Victoria Barracks
It was considered important in the nineteenth century that the low-lying land around the military barracks be free of settlement. The military reserve was originally extended back to Moray Street, but this was changed to Hanna Street (King’s Way) in 1862. The need to protect the soldiers from disease was an impetus to providing parks and gardens for Melbourne as a buffer zone between the barracks and the nearest residential housing to prevent infection passing from the residents of the swampy land to the soldiers:
It is indespensably necessary for the healthy state, not only of the Barracks but of the whole City , that the low-lying land should be kept permanently free from human habitation. Should a population be allowed at any time to settle there, the whole cost of the barracks building would be thrown away, as the troops would certainly be withdrawn for sanitary reasons.
There had been several locations for Police Barracks throughout Melbourne in the second half of the nineteenth century, but following the closure of the Barracks on the corner of Punt Road and Wellington Parade in 1881, the men and horses were transferred to buildings within the Victoria Barracks on St. Kilda Road. They occupied a number of buildings at the Victoria Barracks site. The police were quartered in the building now known as G Block. During this period separate facilities were maintained for the police and the military. In 1882, when a military canteen was opened, the police were reminded that their own canteen was for the use and convenience of the Police Force only ... in future liquor is not to be served out of it to any other person.” The part of the site occupied by the police was fenced off from that used by the military. The eight to ten foot high fence ran alongside the north end of G Building, effectively separating the military parade ground from the much smaller police parade ground. The building now known as J Block was used as the Police Hospital from 1881 to the end of World War I.
After Federation the Commonwealth took control of the Victoria Barracks as part of the Department of Defence, so the police could not continue to use part of the Barracks as their base. The police then took over the site on which the Immigrants Depot had its hospital.
A 1905 plan shows a Continental Picture Garden on the part of the site later occupied by the Police Hospital.
HISTORY OF PLACE
The setting up of the Police Depot on the present St. Kilda Road site arose from the need to move the police from the Victoria Barracks once it was taken over by the Commonwealth Defence Department c.1910 .
The Police Depot was built in three stages. It was decided that the complex would be built on the five acre site and that the work would be carried out in sections, attention being first directed to provision of necessary accommodation for 60 men in order to vacate the Barracks as early as possible. There was to be a hospital, a riding school, a drill-hall, extensive stores for all the police departments, stables for 75 horses, workshops for mechanics, horse-breaking yards, quarters for sub-officers and wagon and van sheds.
However, the first building for the Police Department constructed on the site from September 1912 was the stables, with a street front to Dodds Street and an octagonal entrance hall at the intersection of Dodds and Grant Streets. The stables consisted of 53 loose boxes around a central basalt pitchered access way. A riding school and drill hall were built along Grant Street.
The stables were put to use as a military hospital during World War I and also after the war as a hospital for influenza patients in the pandemic that swept the world in 1919. The beds were placed in rows with the heads against the walls of the loose boxes and a central aisle allowed the nursing staff to move amongst the patients. The temporary wards were illustrated in an issue of Police Life Magazine.
One of the fringe benefits received by police was free medical treatment in the Police Hospital. In the 1860s the Police Medical Officer reported that in a two year period more than 60 admissions to the Police Hospital out of a total of 356 were for gun-shot wounds, broken bones, lacerations and contusions. Other occupational hazards in the nineteenth century included tuberculosis, dysentery and typhoid fever.
From 1881 to 1914 police were treated in the Police Hospital within the Victoria Barracks. The new purpose-built Police Hospital was constructed in 1913-14 by contractor R. S. Phillips at a cost of £6567.15.9. Constructed in pavilion form, it consisted of three sections. On the ground floor, the front single-storey portion nearest to St. Kilda Road contained an office for the doctor, a dispensary and services such as kitchen, scullery, and dining room. The middle section consisted of a store, a two-bed ward and a single ward off a passage opening into a large 8 or 10 bed ward with verandahs on two sides providing fresh air, cross-ventilation and space for convalescing patients to be in the open air.
This reflected hospital design since the 1860s and followed Florence Nightingale’s dictum that
No ward is in any sense a good ward in which the sick are not at all times supplied with pure air, light and a due temperature.
At the back of the ward on the ground floor was a corridor leading to the single storey operating theatre. The ward section was duplicated on the first floor. The outbuildings to the hospital consisted of a free-standing fuel store and a cook’s residence. The building was renovated in 1927. It has become the Arts Building of the Victorian College of the Arts.
To the west of the Police Hospital was built the dispenser’s residence. This three bedroom house facing Nolan Street cost £1124.19.5 in 1913-14.
The old Immigrants Home building on the southern corner of the site was used as the first police barracks for recruits in the Police Depot and for mounted police.
The first organised training for police recruits was introduced in 1919 by Chief Commissioner Steward, who implemented a seven-week training course at the Police Depot. The course included classes in law and police procedure, drill, “physical culture, instruction in the care and use of rifles and revolvers, first aid, swimming and life saving, and how to manage a boat and drag for a body.” Steward also introduced training for detectives.
In November 1923 the police went on strike as a protest against the internal arrangements of the force. The construction of a new building for Police Barracks on the St. Kilda Road site in 1925 was directly related to the police strike and the subsequent attempts by the Government to improve working and living conditions for the police. The 1924 Royal Commission on the Police revealed disgraceful living conditions in many barracks and stations.
At the St. Kilda depot the hospital, the stables, the riding school and drill hall stand out as suitable for their several purposes. ... The stables appeared to lack nothing essential to the health and comfort of their occupants and the horses are much better served than the men. This depot is occupied by recruits in training, also by a reserve of mounted men. Their dwellings are ancient and forlorn of aspect when seen from without; within they are austere to a degree. Apparently none of the most ordinary comforts of home are permitted. Certainly none are visible. A typical dormitory held about a dozen beds. Above each was a narrow shelf, with, for covering, a strip of newspaper. Otherwise the walls were bare. No picture or ornament of any kind was observed. No lockers or other suitable receptacle for the men’s belongings were in evidence. In the dining-room, it was noted that the seats were forms without backs. The whole effect was one of repelling cheerlessness, if not of actual discomfort in any body of men compelled to share them.
The Royal Commission suggested a connection between the physical conditions the men were expected to live under and their propensity to strike. As a result, police capital expenditure increased after the strike by 144% in the first year and continued to increase. The new Barracks was built in St Kilda Road, the Russell Street Barracks were remodelled, the Bourke Street West Police Station was renovated and works done at dozens of police stations throughout the state.
The 1925 Barracks dramatically improved living conditions for recruits and staff and also provided facilities for training of recruits. The building was constructed of three storeys. On the ground floor was a kitchen, servery, officers’ mess and constables’ mess, married mens’ lunchroom, and offices. Classrooms, a billiard room and single bedrooms for 22 men were located on the first floor. The second floor accommodated 45 men in 22 single rooms and three dormitories.
In c.1916-20 a building containing the Stores and Workshops was constructed. This was added to in 1929. The Store Room had a counter to issue uniform to police officers. . The architectural plan showed shelving for overcoats, helmets, blankets and other stores. At the same time a residence for the “Rough-Riders”, those in connection with the breaking of horses for police work, was built between the dispenser’s residence and the workshops.
Horse yards for training purposes with a crush gate were constructed in the stable yard in 1933 at a cost of £136.3.0.
Stage 3 Occupation by Victorian College of the Arts/Mounted Police, 1973-
In 1973 the Police acquired the former seminary, Corpus Christi College at Glen Waverley for use as the Police Training Academy. The major part of the St. Kilda Road site with the exception of the stables and the hospital was taken over by the Victorian College of the Arts. In 1981 the Police Hospital moved in to a new building at the back of the Prince Henry’s Hospital, and the old police hospital on St. Kilda Road became part of the Victorian College of the Arts.
The police retained the Mounted Police Stables, which are the Operational Headquarters for the Mounted Police in Victoria. The riding school for police is no longer in use. The training school is now located at Attwood, near Broadmeadows, where the Police Stud is also located.
In 1995 a strip of land along Grant Street taking in part of the Police Stables was reserved for the purposes of the City Link Act.
The Victorian College of the Arts took over the Barracks first (now the Administration Building) and in 1981 the Police Hospital, which is now the Arts Building. The Dispenser’s Residence is now used by the Australian Dance Council while the Rough Riders’ Residence is used to accommodate both the Artist in Residence and a workshop for the student opera’s wardrobe department. The College has also constructed a number of additional buildings on the site which have obliterated the outdoor facilities provided for the police , such as the parade ground, cricket ground and tennis court.
The Architects
The architectural division of the Victorian Public Works Department was responsible for the design of each of the buildings at the Police Depot. The buildings were erected during a seventeen year period from 1912 to 1929, and during this period, the Department’s highest position of Chief Architect was filled by three architects.
George Watson
George Watson was born in England on 25 September 1850 and migrated to Australia at the age of twenty two years. Shortly after his arrival on 26 October 1872, he gained his first position with the Public Works Department as a temporary Assistant Draftsman. He was upgraded from this position to a temporary Draftsman in 1879, and three years later, he was promoted to temporary Assistant Architect. On 1 February 1885, Watson was made a permanent staff member with his new position of Assistant Architect for the Central District. In 1910, he was appointed to the newly created position of Chief Architect, following the 1909 Grainger Report on the practices of the architectural branch of the Department. Watson remained in this position until his retirement in 1915.
During Watson’s time at the Public Works Department, he worked on many projects such as the Bendigo Post Office (1882), the Richmond Post Office (1879) and the Port Fairy Post Office (1880) as well as the Bendigo Law Courts (1890), the Stawell Court House (1878) and the Shepparton Court House (1881). Watson also worked on the Sunbury Lunatic Asylum, the new Female Prison at Pentridge and the State Government Offices for the Department of Agriculture at 3 Treasury Place, Melbourne. He also collaborated with S. C. Brittingham on the design for the Administration Building of the Mont Park Hospital complex.
Watson was an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects as well as the Australian representative of the London Society of Architects. He also held the rank of Major in the local forces and was in command of the Army Service Corps. He was appointed ADC to His Excellency the Acting-Governor during his term of office and Honorary ADC to the Lieutenant Governor of the State of Victoria.
Samuel C. Brittingham
Samuel C. Brittingham was born on 12 June 1860. Once joining the Victorian Public Works Department in 1875, he worked in the junior architectural positions of Trainee Draftsman in the State Schools Division and later as Assistant Architect (2nd Grade) for the North Western District. In 1908 Brittingham took the position of District Architect for the Central area, and in 1915 following the retirement of George Watson, he became the acting Chief Architect. Brittingham was officially appointed to the position of Chief Architect in 1916, and he remained in the position until 1922.
During his time with the Public Works Department, Brittingham worked on the design of many buildings including the Bourke Street West Police Station (1888), the Parkville Post Office (1889) and a number of other Post Offices and Court Houses throughout country Victoria. Later in his career he worked on many buildings in the Mont Park complex, including the Administration Building (1913), the former Paying Patients Block (1911-13), the Paying Patients Wards (1911-13), the Chronic Wards (1914-16) and the Military Mental Ward (1919-23).
Edwin Evan Smith
Edwin Evan Smith was born in Montrose, Scotland on 4 October 1870. He was articled to an unknown architect in Scotland before migrating to Australia in August 1889. In 1898, Smith gained a position as a draftsman in the Queensland Department of Public Works. Fourteen years later, he was employed by the Commonwealth Department of Works in Queensland, where he remained until 1922. At this time he was appointed Chief Architect of the Public Works Department in Victoria. In December 1929, Smith was appointed government architect of New South Wales and he remained in that position until he retired in October 1935. He died in August 1965.
During his term as Chief Architect of the Victorian Public Works Department, Smith supervised the design of many buildings, including the State Government Offices at Bendigo (1928), police buildings at South Melbourne (1925) and Malvern (1929) and the former Police Barracks on St. Kilda Road (1925). He also supervised the design of many new schools and court houses throughout metropolitan Melbourne and country Victoria.
E. Evan Smith was awarded the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects Street Architecture Medal in 1930 for his design of the Emily McPherson College of Domestic Economy, corner Russell and Victoria Streets. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects.FORMER VICTORIA POLICE DEPOT - Assessment Against Criteria
Criterion A
The historical importance, association with or relationship to Victoria's history of the place or object.
The St Kilda Road site of the former South Melbourne Police Depot has important associations with the history of Melbourne as the location of Canvas Town in 1852-54 and the Immigrants Home from 1856-1914. The construction of the Stables, Riding School and former Drill Hall, Hospital and Dispenser's Residence was directly related to the Federal Government's decision to establish the Victoria Barracks as the headquarters for the newly formed Commonwealth Department of Defence in 1906. As the Victorian Police Department had occupied a significant proportion of the Barracks since 1881, provision was made by the Government to relocate the Police Department to the nearby St Kilda Road site.
The former Hospital (1914) was the first purpose-built Police Hospital to be constructed in Victoria and is significant in demonstrating the support services considered necessary for the police force at that time. Its pavilion design, intended to provide ample sunlight and ventilation for patients, expressed late nineteenth and early twentieth century attitudes to hospital planning.
The construction of the new Police Barracks on St. Kilda Road was directly related to the police strike of November 1923 and subsequent Royal Commission in 1924, which found that many police barracks and stations provided poor living conditions for officers. As a result, the old Immigrants Home buildings originally used by the Police were demolished and construction of the new barracks was commenced.
The Police Depot is historically significant as a police training establishment of the early twentieth century, and demonstrates the reliance on the horse as a means of transport for police work at that time.
Criterion B
The importance of a place or object in demonstrating rarity or uniqueness.
The former police Hospital and Dispenser's Residence are examples of the few Police buildings to remain virtually intact in metropolitan Melbourne.
The Police Barracks is a rare example of the combination of this building type with the Georgian Revival style, as it was an aesthetic usually reserved for private residences or commercial buildings such as banks and offices.
Criterion C
The place or object's potential to educate, illustrate or provide further scientific investigation in relation to Victoria's cultural heritage.
The Former Victoria Police Depot has the potential to educate and illustrate the history of the police in Victoria, and in particular the changes in the use of horses as a means of transport.
Criterion D
The importance of a place or object in exhibiting the principal characteristics or the representative nature of a place or object as part of a class or type of places or objects.
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Criterion E
The importance of a place or object in exhibiting good design or aesthetic characteristics and /or in exhibiting a richness, diversity or unusual integration of features.
The Mounted Police Stables, the Riding School and former Drill Hall by the architect, George Watson, Chief Architect of the Public Works Department from 1910-1915, is a remarkable building considered at the time to rival the Spanish Riding school in Vienna.
The former Police Barracks is architecturally significant as a notable example of the Georgian Revival style which developed in Australia during the early twentieth century. The building is a rare example of the combination of this building type with the Georgian Revival style, as it was an aesthetic usually reserved for private residences or commercial buildings such as banks and offices. E. Evan Smith's signature style of Georgian Revival is representative of an important part of Australia's architectural history as it was the first time that an earlier style practised in this country was re-created.
Criterion G
The importance of a place or object in demonstrating social or cultural associations.
Criterion H
Any other matter which the Council considers relevant to the determination of cultural heritage significance.FORMER VICTORIA POLICE DEPOT - Permit Exemptions
General Exemptions:General exemptions apply to all places and objects included in the Victorian Heritage Register (VHR). General exemptions have been designed to allow everyday activities, maintenance and changes to your property, which don’t harm its cultural heritage significance, to proceed without the need to obtain approvals under the Heritage Act 2017.Places of worship: In some circumstances, you can alter a place of worship to accommodate religious practices without a permit, but you must notify the Executive Director of Heritage Victoria before you start the works or activities at least 20 business days before the works or activities are to commence.Subdivision/consolidation: Permit exemptions exist for some subdivisions and consolidations. If the subdivision or consolidation is in accordance with a planning permit granted under Part 4 of the Planning and Environment Act 1987 and the application for the planning permit was referred to the Executive Director of Heritage Victoria as a determining referral authority, a permit is not required.Specific exemptions may also apply to your registered place or object. If applicable, these are listed below. Specific exemptions are tailored to the conservation and management needs of an individual registered place or object and set out works and activities that are exempt from the requirements of a permit. Specific exemptions prevail if they conflict with general exemptions. Find out more about heritage permit exemptions here.Specific Exemptions:General Conditions:
1. All exempted alterations are to be planned and carried out in a manner which prevents damage to the fabric of the registered place or object.
2. Should it become apparent during further inspection or the carrying out of alterations that original or previously hidden or inaccessible details of the place or object are revealed which relate to the significance of the place or object, then the exemption covering such alteration shall cease and the Executive Director shall be notified as soon as possible.
3. If there is a conservation policy and plan approved by the Executive Director, all works shall be in accordance with it.
4. Nothing in this declaration prevents the Executive Director from amending or rescinding all or any of the permit exemptions.
Nothing in this declaration exempts owners or their agents from the responsibility to seek relevant planning or building permits from the responsible authority where applicable.
5. All interior works to the former police stores (B3 and B4).
6. All interior works to the buildings erected by the Victorian College of the Arts or superficial works to the exteriors of these buildings.FORMER VICTORIA POLICE DEPOT - Permit Exemption Policy
The policy is to maintain the cultural significance of the buildings which relate to the police presence on the site from 1912 to 1973 for the barracks, riding school, drill hall and hospital, quarters and store and from 1912 to the present in the case of the stables.The relationship of the Dispenser's Residence to the Former Police Hospital is of particular significance. All remaining fabric is of significance.
The relationship of the former Barracks to St Kilda Road is of primary significance. The building has been designed to address the street with its longest facade being parallel with the road. It has also been specifically set back from the street to provide a landscaped area between the entrance of the building and St. Kilda Road. The remaining open space at the rear of the building is of contributory significance. Although originally a much larger space used for many purposes including parades of the resident police officers, the current space provides an area which not only enables the rear of the building to be identified but also allows the immediate surrounds of the site to be viewed from the balconies and verandah on the building’s west facade.
The retention, preservation and restoration of all original fabric is the main priority in the conservation of the former Depot. The original fabric of the external facades is substantially intact and should therefore be retained and conserved as appropriate. The significance of the interior of the buildings however, has somewhat diminished due to substantial alterations made to some of the original fabric of the buildings in the past. Specific areas identified as being significant in the Conservation Plan should be considered as significant and retained and conserved as appropriate.
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REGENT THEATREVictorian Heritage Register H0690
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WAREHOUSEVictorian Heritage Register H0428
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ROSS HOUSE (FLINDERS LANE)Victorian Heritage Register H0627
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"1890"Yarra City
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"AMF Officers" ShedMoorabool Shire
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"AQUA PROFONDA" SIGN, FITZROY POOLVictorian Heritage Register H1687
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'NORWAY'Boroondara City
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1 Mitchell StreetYarra City
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