Wellington Street Precinct
BLANCHE STREET, GOUGH PLACE, HUCKERBY STREET, JESSIE STREET, KELSO STREET, MELROSE STREET, PUNT ROAD, ROUT STREET, and WELLINGTON STREET, CREMORNE, YARRA CITY
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Statement of Significance
The Wellington Street precinct, which comprises Blanche Street, Gough Place, Huckerby Street, Jessie Street, Kelso Street, Melrose Street, Punt Road, Rout Street and Wellington Street, Cremorne is significant.
Contributory elements include Victorian and Edwardian houses (including some Individually Significant houses and terrace rows), having typically:
- pitched gable or hipped roofs;
- one storey wall heights;
- weatherboard, face brick, or stucco wall cladding; corrugated iron, with some slate roofing;
- chimneys of either stucco finish (with moulded caps) or of matching face brickwork with capping courses;
- post-supported verandah elements facing the street;
- less than 40% of the street wall face comprised with openings such aswindows and doors; and
- front gardens, bordered by low front fences, typically of timber picket for the Victorian and Edwardian-eras.
Contributory elements also include public infrastructure, expressive of the Victorian and Edwardian-eras such as stone pitched road paving, kerbs and channels, and asphalt paved footpaths.
How is it significant?
The Wellington Street precinct is aesthetically and historically significant to the locality of Cremorne and the City of Yarra.
Why is it significant?
The precinct is historically significant as a well defined area of Victorian and Edwardian-era houses that matches the major growth periods in Richmond's and the City's housing history, which complements the nearby Cremorne precinct as tangible evidence of the historic development of Cremorne. It is notable as one of the first areas to be developed in Richmond, with some houses reflecting the 1850s estates. (Criteria A & D)
The precinct is aesthetically and architecturally significant for some distinctive house groups such as in Gough Place and Individually Significant houses. (Criteria D & E)
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Wellington Street Precinct - Physical Description 1
The Wellington Street precinct is a largely Victorian-era residential area centred on Wellington Street and extends north from the riverside industrial precinct south of Gough Street to the commercial strip of Swan Street West on the north. The arbitrary crank in the line of Wellington Street shows the two development phases (early and late Victorian-era) and exemplifies the piecemeal nature of private development, generally, in the Richmond area.
The haphazard street alignments generate unexpected house groups and vistas. There is the long weatherboard cottage row in Gough Place that now faces out across a large development site towards Punt Road: its unbroken roofline is another testimony of how Richmond, as well as being planned on a free-market basis, was also outside of the building laws that initially applied to the other inner suburbs of Melbourne (Melbourne Building Act 1849). The construction of small, weatherboard and brick cottages in the narrow confines of the early Huckerby and Jessie streets is another illustration of this evasion of standard building codes. The Richmond Conservation Study (1985) notes of 'Cremorne Cottage', at 50 Jessie Street: '...Similar size building shown in similar location on Lands Dept 1855 Map of Richmond...' Other early houses such as 375-377 Punt Road can also be traced back in plan form to the Kearney Plan of 1855, adjoining the Rout Street entry to the precinct.
A small Wellington Street house row (nos. 66-68) had rare and early brick-nogged wall construction as an indication of early construction techniques in this precinct. This method of wall construction involves brickwork placed between timber frame members and overclad with weatherboard providing for an uncommon and environmentally sound building method. The Australian Architecture Index cites two other brick nogged houses nearby in Cremorne Street auctioned in 1879.
Key buildings include late Victorian-era houses like the row-house pair at 397-395 Punt Road, described in the 1990s as:
... A double-storey, rendered, Boom terrace pair, set back with a parapet. The centrepiece is (set) between abstracted Doric pilasters, supported by scrolls. Cornice and frieze-mould has vermiculated corbels; also to verandah, these on scrollbrackets. The skillion verandah, between wing-walls, has cast-iron lace valence and Composite posts, with first-storey balustrade in an unusual pattern of panels between balusters. Ground-window is tripartite with Tuscan fluted mullions. Doors have fan and sidelights. Chimneys have corbelled brick-bands' as an illustration of the range of ornament that was used in the late 19th century.
More typical, late Victorian-era masonry row houses line Wellington Street. 'Balino Cottage', at 44 Wellington Street, is an exception:
A characteristic double-fronted, symmetrical, rendered, Boom cottage, on the street line, with rich decoration. There is a balustraded parapet between piers, surmounted by balloons. The centrepiece has a scallop-shell in a round arch, with acroterion. Piers are supported by small scroll-brackets. A frieze and cornice-mould is supported by brackets, between festoons. The parapet and verandah wing-wall corbels are vermiculated, the latter on scroll-brackets. The brickwork beneath the verandah was exposed, decorated with diamond ceramic tiles. The tripartite window has barleysugar Tuscan mullions and bluestone cill and fanlight over door. The verandah is convex, with cast-iron posts, lace-valence and brackets. There are encaustic geometric tiles. The chimney has deep rendered Classical mould'
Edwardian-era development is seen in houses facing Kelso Street (nos. 5, 9) as well as the former grocer's shop at 12 Kelso Street (Peter Byrne's shop in 1904 and Marcus Steel's in 1920), providing the sense of a self contained domain where provisions were available to householders within walking distance. Intermixed with these are the numerous Victorian-era houses, mainly weatherboard clad, with corrugated iron clad hipped roofs (but with some parapeted forms such as 17 Kelso Street) and little in the way of front gardens.
Heritage Study and Grading
Yarra - Heritage Gap Study
Author: Graeme Butler & Associates
Year: 2007
Grading:
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