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HOUSE
69 CHUM STREET, GOLDEN SQUARE - PROPERTY NUMBER 179589, GREATER BENDIGO CITY
HOUSE
69 CHUM STREET, GOLDEN SQUARE - PROPERTY NUMBER 179589, GREATER BENDIGO CITY
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![69 Chum Street Hermes Citation Sheet March 2010 69 Chum Street Hermes Citation Sheet March 2010](https://vhd.heritagecouncil.vic.gov.au/vhd-images/places/000/229/227.jpg)
69 Chum Street Hermes Citation Sheet March 2010
![69 Chum Street Hermes Citation Sheet March 2010 69 Chum Street Hermes Citation Sheet March 2010](https://vhd.heritagecouncil.vic.gov.au/vhd-images/places/000/229/227.jpg)
On this page:
Statement of Significance
What is significant?
The property was purchased in 1957 by G. Hislon, when the title was transferred from a Miners Residency Area to Torrens Title. From local oral history sources, like most of the men in the area, Mr. Hilson worked at the nearby Foggitt Jones small goods factory. According to City of Bendigo information pamphlet which was published in 1963 the works were a large employer with about 200 people working in the abattoir and canning of sheep, pigs and cattle and small goods section, which cured and packaged bacon. The Argus in 1917 published details of all major Bendigo industries including Foggitt Jones & Co which was established in Queensland, Oxley, in 1904 with branches opening in Perth, Sydney, Adelaide, Newcastle, Melbourne (Clayton) and Bendigo.
The Brisbane firm of Foggitt, Jones, and Company, seeking quarters for a ham and bacon curing factory in Victoria, selected a site at Bendigo, and extensive operations are now being carried on by this firm. It kills on an average 1,000 pigs a week, and a small number of calves, whose flesh is used in the preparation of that delicacy beloved of Melbourne night revellers and known as a saveloy. About 24,000 of these are made each week at the factory, and about the same quantity of the frankfurters. A satisfactory export trade in hams and bacon is also
The expansion of the Foggitt Jones & Co in the area in 1948 represents a changing attitude towards the former mines lands, which were either turned into new industrial sites or earmarked for government housing commission estates and opened up for residential development. The business provided much needed employment after the Second World War and at one time employed over 200 local residents. Foggitt Jones & Co was an important competitor to the local Gillies Pie and Crystal Ice manufacturers. They heralded a new diversification of local industry into agricultural and manufacturing products.
The block bound by Chum, Maple, Pallett and Wilmot Streets, excepting for the allotment owned by Hislon, was mine land, Crown Land, the location of New Chum United mine works, sited alongside Napoleon line of gold bearing reef. The area is of further interest as it is the head water of New Chum Gully which flowed to the east across Booth and Ophir Streets down towards Shamrock Street across the New Chum United battery works and the pyrites works.
The cottage at 69 Chum Street comprises four sections, a small mud brick kitchen section which is slightly elevated and has a later small projecting front gable end room built onto the north side overlooking Chum Street. The main four room section of the cottage with central hallway has a skillion roof addition at the rear. Historic evidence suggests that early cottages in this area were predominately made of mud brick or that the detached kitchen sections were built of mud brick. The main rooms of the house were often built of timber frame and lined with weatherboard either constructed around the mud brick section or such as this example as an addition. Alternatively there was often an open breezeway that separated the fire prone kitchen from the main house. This area was often later filled in forming a central internal room, which was valued for its coolness and protection from the heat and sun.
Oral history provided by Mrs I. Hocking, a long time resident in Chum Street, confirms that there were previously at least 6 or more mud brick cottages in the nearby vicinity. These cottages were located on Crown Land many of which had been built during the Depression years. The government authorities formerly leased out adjacent Crown Land for grazing of cattle, pigs, horses and other stock. Much of this Crown Land has now been re-zoned as Residential and subdivided for houses, which has resulted in demolition of most of the mud brick houses. The earlier pattern of settlement of hand made vernacular style mud brick homes built on land illegally, by adverse possession is typical of the Napoleon line of reef and is supported by recent historic research in other areas, for example as part of the Ironbark Heritage study and beyond, including the Sparrowhawk and Derwent Gullies areas. Many of the mud brick dwellings in the latter area were destroyed in the bush fires of 2009.
The main section of the house dates to about 1870s-1880s as evidenced by the four pane windows, timber double hung sash windows, timber architraves, exterior cladding, height scale and sizes of rooms, curved hipped verandah roof and decorative cast iron bracket details. The interior of the house has been relined in the 1930s-50s and is not original. Many of the earlier houses were lined with newspapers and Hessian and wall papered over, while the ceilings were built of timber tongue and groove lining boards. The house has not been repaired or maintained for many years. The stumps and bearers are rotted out and the whole structural frame should be strengthened and made rigid.
How is it significant?
The cottage at 69 Chum Street has historic, architectural, scientific and social significance at a local level to the City of Bendigo. (Criteria A, B, C, D and H)
Why is it significant?
Criterion A: Importance to the course, or pattern, of Victoria’s cultural history
The former miner’s cottage at 69 Chum Street is historically significant as a good example of a very small timber and mud brick cottage located on the banks of New Chum Gully in the vicinity of Fortuna Villa, Bendigo. It is historically associated with several nearby German/Cornish influenced mud brick cottages. These cottages, many of which are now demolished, were built by sustenance workers during the Depression years of 1890s and 1930s. They form a scattered group sited along the Napoleon line of gold bearing reef to Sparrowhawk Gully. The cottage at 69 Chum Street shows continual use since the 1870s to 2010. It was purchased by Mr. G Hislon in the 1950s.The owner was employed as a meat worker at Foggitt Jones & Co, abattoir and canneries until his retirement. The cannery located on former mine land on New Chum Gully, included a small goods section, which cured and packaged bacon and manufactured specialty German sausages and ‘saveloys’ which were very popular in Melbourne. The establishment of the national Queensland based firm, Foggitt Jones & Co, in the area between 1917 and 1948 represented a changing attitude towards the former mines lands. An important competitor to the historic Gillies Pie and Crystal Ice operations, it heralded a new diversification of local industry into agricultural and manufacturing products.
The working class miner’s cottage set amidst the regrowth trees, peppercorn trees and old mine relic landscape of New Chum Gully and New Chum United area is of historical significance as a ‘fringe’ landscape that illustrates the extremely uneven distribution of wealth in Bendigo that resulted from the development of large company mines after 1870s. The small cottage is self-made, created from the mud of the local creek beds, influenced by traditional construction methods of local German miners in Derwent and Sparrowhawk Gullies to the north. They provide a powerful visual contrast between Fortuna Villa and the newly formed affluent suburbs of Bendigo built by mine owners and mine speculators and the less fortunate.
Criterion B: Possession of uncommon, rare or endangered aspects of Victoria’s cultural history.
The cottage belongs to a group of increasingly rare structures that show a combined use of timber weatherboards and pise, German rammed earth construction technique, the mud coming from the nearby creek. Groups of mud adobe and pise rammed earth dwellings associated with the German community were once a common feature on the Bendigo, but are now becoming increasingly rare.
Criterion D: Importance in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a class of cultural places or environments.
The timber and mud brick cottage is significant as a highly intact mid 19th century miner’s cottage erected on Miners Residency Areas, which was retained on Crown Land until the mid 20th century. The cottage displays a level of intactness and authenticity in terms of its architectural character, form and scale that demonstrates the principle features of the early 1860s and 1870s mining landscape of New Chum area in the vicinity of Fortuna Villa. The sporadic and scattered incidence of very small miners’ cottages, especially mud brick and timber structures in this historic mining landscape clearly tells the story of the early alluvial and quartz reef mining boom in Bendigo from the 1850s through to the major mining boom of the late 1860s and early 1870s, when huge mining companies worked on profitable lines of gold bearing reef in contrast with nearby lines of reef, which continued to be worked over by individual miners, small tribute groups of miners.
Criterion G: Strong association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons.
The cottage has social significance for its strong association with the local Cornish mining community and its links to the mud pise rammed earth cottages show strong German influence in their construction methods and building techniques.
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