PRECINCT - MAY STREET
1-35 and 2-48 MAY STREET and 72 and 74 O'HEA STREET, COBURG, MORELAND CITY
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Statement of Significance
What is significant?
The houses, constructed between c.1890 and c.1935, at 1-7 & 11-35 and 4, 8-24, 28 & 36-48 May Street and 72 & 74 O'Hea Street, Coburg are significant. The legibility of the main periods of development as represented by the housing types and styles, and the consistency of form, scale, siting with small front setback and low front fence, materials and detailing of the contributory dwellings is integral to the significance of this precinct. The bluestone kerb and channel also contributes to the significance of the precinct.
Non-original alterations and additions to the contributory houses, the houses at 2, 6, 9, 26, & 30-34, and outbuildings are not significant.
How is it significant?
The May Street precinct is of local historic significance to Moreland City.
Why is it significant?
The May Street precinct is historically significant as a residential area that provides tangible evidence of key phases in the suburban development of Coburg in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. This street is notable as one of the few in this part of Coburg where the limited development prior to the 1890s depression and the recovery and significant development that occurred before and after World War I can be interpreted though the housing stock. (Criterion A & D)
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PRECINCT - MAY STREET - Physical Description 1
The May Street precinct is a residential area comprising housing from the late nineteenth to early twentieth century. The contributory houses within the precinct are Nos. 1-7 & 11-35 and 4, 8-24, 28 & 36-48 May Street and 72 & 74 O'Hea Street. The historic character of the street is complemented by the bluestone kerb and channel.
The surviving Victorian houses at 10, 23 & 25 May Street and 72 O'Hea Street are double-fronted weatherboard villas with M-hip roofs. No.23 is asymmetrical in plan and has an ashlar front and paired windows with arched tops. Other detailing includes mouldings and eaves brackets and rendered chimneys. The house at No.10 is notable for its elegant verandah, which has a very shallow ogee profile with a central projecting gable and a cast iron frieze. Other detailing includes paired eaves brackets and bi-chromatic brick chimneys. The house at 72 O'Hea has an ashlar front and a convex profile verandah with cast iron brackets. Other detailing includes the tripartite windows to the main elevation, paired eaves brackets and partial frieze along the front, and a pair of rendered chimneys with vermiculated panels.
There is a second group of very similar houses which date from early twentieth century houses and could be properly called 'Victorian Survival'. They differ in a few small details, such as corbelled brick chimneys and turned timber verandah posts, but their general form is nearly identical to the nineteenth-century examples. They include the double fronted weatherboard houses at Nos.27-33 May Street and 74 O'Hea Street. No.27 May Street is asymmetrical in plan with a hip roof and projecting gable, while the houses at 29-31 are double-fronted houses, which all originally had M-hip roofs (No.31 has recently been altered) and are similar in form to the Victorian houses at 10 and 25. This row of houses retains their corbelled brick chimneys, which are an important element in the streetscape. The Federation era house at 74 O'Hea Street has similar detailing to its Victorian counterpart (ashlar front, eaves brackets) on the opposite corner, but has been lost its original verandah and front windows.
The identical single-fronted cottages at 36 & 38 May Street have typical Edwardian form and detailing including roughcast render to the gable ends and triple, side-hung casement windows with coloured highlights in the main elevation and notched weatherboards beneath the windows. The house at No.3 is a late (c.1920) and fine example of an Edwardian bungalow with ashlar front, half-timbering to the gable end, which has a box bay window with hood. There is another box bay window set at angle at the corner under the return verandah, which has turned posts and simple carved brackets. There are two brick and render chimneys with terracotta pots.
The inter-war houses typically include gable-fronted cottages with a projecting minor gable with a flat or skillion-roofed verandah tucked in beside (or that extends across the projecting gable, as at No.24) and those that have a transverse gable roof, which extends to form the verandah beside a projecting gable end bay. Exceptions include the single gabled house at No.1, which has a corner porch, the house at No.11 which has a hip terracotta tile roof with a projecting gable and no porch, and the house at No.8, which has a projecting hip-roofed porch supported by square rendered columns. Most of the houses have typical Arts & Crafts detailing such as timber shingles or half-timbering to the gable ends. Windows are either double hung sash, usually in pairs or triples and sometimes boxed, or casements with coloured highlights, which are on occasion arranged in shallow projecting semi-circular (e.g., No.24) or canted (No.11) bays.
The houses are generally in good condition and have, generally speaking, moderate to high degrees of external integrity when viewed from May Street. Alterations are generally minor such as the replacement of windows (e.g., 25, 28, 35, 36 May St, 74 O'Hea), and/or reversible such as the enclosure of the verandah at No.44 May St, the removal of the verandah to 74 O'Hea, and many replacements of verandah supports (e.g., 1, 3, 15, 22, 25, 42, 48). Additions made at the rear are generally not visible from the street.
The street as a whole has a relatively high degree of intactness to the period c.1890 to c.1935. The post-war houses at 2, 6, 26, 30-34 and the much altered house at No.9 (it has a large and dominating second storey addition) are non-contributory.
Heritage Study and Grading
Moreland - City of Moreland - North of Bell Street Heritage Study
Author: Context Pty Ltd
Year: 2013
Grading: Local
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INFANT BUILDING AND SHELTER SHED, PRIMARY SCHOOL NO.484Victorian Heritage Register H1709
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BRIDGEVictorian Heritage Register H1446
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HM PRISON PENTRIDGEVictorian Heritage Register H1551
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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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"1890"Yarra City
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'BRAESIDE'Boroondara City
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'ELAINE'Boroondara City
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