Former Railway Hotel, 641-651 Dandenong Road, Malvern
641-651 Dandenong Road, MALVERN VIC 3144 - Property No 15046
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Statement of Significance
What is Significant?
The former Railway Hotel at 641-651 Dandenong Road, Malvern, is a double-storey hotel located on a prominent corner site at the southern end of the Glenferrie Road shopping strip. A hotel was first constructed on this site sometime before 1856. This building was altered in the 1880s and then extensively remodelled c1925 to create the hotel's present interwar Free Classical style facade.
The hotel carpark, attached Victorian shop facade, drive-in bottle shop, and modern additions to the north side of the hotel do not contribute to the significance of the place.
How is it Significant?
The former Railway Hotel is of local architectural and historical significance to the City of Stonnington.
Why is it Significant?
The former Railway Hotel demonstrates the major interwar trend of rebuilding and remodelling nineteenth century hotels which followed the establishment of the Licenses Reduction Board. It is also significant for the enduring use of the site as a licensed premises for over 150 years, and as evidence of how many early hotels were sited along main transport routes and became the focal point for commercial development.
The former Railway Hotel is architecturally significant a fine and largely intact example of a hotel with a restrained interwar Free Classical style facade. The hotel's prominent corner location and dignified architectural character make it a local landmark. The hotel is of additional significance for its association with prolific interwar hotel architect Robert H McIntyre and because it is one of very few pre-World War II hotel buildings to survive in the former City of Malvern.
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Former Railway Hotel, 641-651 Dandenong Road, Malvern - Physical Description 1
The former Railway Hotel occupies a prominent site on the north-east corner of Dandenong and Glenferrie roads. The hotel complex includes the main hotel building, an adjoining double-storey Victorian shop with a modern drive-in bottle shop addition and an asphalt paved carpark to its east.
The hotel is a double-storey building designed in a restrained interwar Free Classical stye. It has a rendered masonry facade, built directly on the street boundaries with a chamfered corner. Both street frontages have a broadly symmetrical composition, each containing two sets of doors on the ground floor flanked by fluted pilasters and surmounted by narrow corbelled canopies. Another door is located on the hotel's chamfered corner. Ground floor windows typically adopt a tri-partite arrangement with narrow slit windows flanking either side of a wider central opening. First floor windows are timber-framed double-hung sashes spaced at regular intervals. The whole of the facade is surmounted by a strongly moulded cornice and a rendered parapet with a pattern of closely spaced vertical incisions. Above each of the ground floor doors, the parapet has triangular pediments with circular rendered panels. A hipped corrugated iron clad roof sits behind the parapet and is largely concealed from view.
The hotel's facade remains substantially intact to its c1926 state but with the addition of modern signage and some modifications to the ground floor openings on the Dandenong Road frontage. The tiled ground floor dado shown on the 1926 drawings has been removed or rendered over. The Victorian shop building abutting the east side of the hotel appears to survive only to the extent of the front facade with a short return to the side walls. The shop's first floor windows have been infilled and there is a modern drive-in bottle shop canopy attached to its east side. There is also a modest single-storey addition on the north side of the hotel with a small setback from Glenferrie Road. The hotel interior was not inspected in detail as part of this assessment but nonetheless appears to retain little fabric of heritage value.
Former Railway Hotel, 641-651 Dandenong Road, Malvern - Historical Australian Themes
The former Railway Hotel illustrates the following themes as identified in the Stonnington Thematic Environmental History (Context Pty Ltd, 2006):
7.4.1 Early Hotels
7.4.2 Developing a Modern Hospitality IndustryHeritage Study and Grading
Stonnington - Hotels in the City of Stonnington Heritage Citations Project
Author: Bryce Raworth Pty Ltd
Year: 2010
Grading: A2
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MYOORAVictorian Heritage Register H0490
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MALVERN RAILWAY STATIONVictorian Heritage Register H1575
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MALVERN TRAM DEPOTVictorian Heritage Register H0910
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