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BURNHAM
14 GRANGE ROAD, TOORAK VIC 3142 - Property No 34183

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Stonnington City
Burnham
Burnham
Burnham
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Statement of Significance

What is significant?
Burnham, 14 Grange Road, Toorak as designed by Robert B. Hamilton and constructed in 1932-3, is significant. The significant attributes are the Old English style form, materials and detailing of the flats and garages, front and side brick fences. The high level of external intactness and wide range of decorative and quirky detailing that is typical of Hamilton including uniquely designed screen doors with inset panels, the bracket with name plate and light fittings etc. are integral to the significance of the place.

Later alterations and additions are not significant.

How is it significant?
Burnham is of local historic, architectural and aestheticsignificance to the City of Stonnington.

Why is it significant?
Historically, it is significant as one of the first examples of the Old EnglishLuxury flat type designed by Robert Hamilton to resemble a large single-family home, an approachthat he would use in many of his subsequent developments. Hamilton was one of the most important and influential designers of Luxury flats in Toorak and South Yarra and this development of four large single-levelflats together with 'Haddon Hall', which is of a similar design, but comprising maisonettes demonstrate the two approaches used by Hamilton over the next decade either in separate buildings or in combination. (Criteria A, D & H)

Architecturally and aesthetically, Burnham is a highly accomplished and externally intact example of interwar flats designed in the Old English style. Details such as the fine brickwork, massive corbelled chimneys, and entrance gates with silhouette panels and lanterns, and brick fence all contribute to its significance. Also for its association with Robert Hamilton, Victoria's foremost practitioner of the inter-war Old English style. (Criteria E, F & H)

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    • Physical Description 1

      BURNHAM - Physical Description 1

      Burnham flats, 14 Grange Road Road, Toorak, is a two-storey brick building on the corner of Grange Road and Lascelles Avenue. It is L-shaped in plan, creating a sheltered courtyard at the rear. On the Grange Road side, it is set back behind a modest front garden, bound by a low clinker brick fence. These walls are curved to meet the main entry on this elevation, which is reached via two short flights of clinker brick steps.

      The building is expressed as two wings, one along each streetfront, with separate high hipped roofs, covered in brown Marseille tiles. There are many tall brick chimneys with wide corbelled tops. The walls are a combination of clinker bricks, scattered with distorted overburnt bricks to provide texture, and clinker brick fachwerk (half-timbering with brick nogging). The nogging is in a variety of picturesque patterns, seen in the slightly projecting gables marking the two entrances (one on each elevation). Balcony balustrades are comprised of vertical board and batten, in a matte-brown finish. The openings above and below the balconies are framed with curved timber brackets reminiscent of Medieval crucks. This cruck motif is also seen to the windows above the Lascelles Avenue entrance, and the brick wall of the opening below are slightly corbelled to echo this form.

      Windows are mainly six-over-six double-hung sashes, with Medieval leadlight windows incorporating glass bullseyes to the staircases and above the two entries.

      Beside the central entrance to the Lascelles Avenue elevation is a low entrance through an arch of timber 'crucks'. It has an arched cast-iron gate with a range of wrought-iron ornament (hearts, zigzags). At the centre is a small sheet-metal silhouette of an 18th-century shepherdess. Beside the entrance is rustic metal lettering reading 'BURNHAM' on the brick wall. The entrance on Grange Road is similar, with an arched metal gate with the silhouette of a woman and girl in hoopskirts and bonnets. There is a rustic metal lantern above this door.

      One first-floor balcony openings has been infilled with windows, otherwise no alterations were noted.

      In the rear yard, entered off Lascelles Avenue, is an original block of four garages. They have clinker-brick walls and parapeted fronts, which step down with the slope of the land. Their timber doors have been replaced with modern roller doors.

      Heritage Study and Grading

      Heritage Study and Grading

      Stonnington - Residential Flats in Stonnington - Heritage Citations Project

      Author: Context P/L
      Year: 2013
      Grading: A2

Public contributions

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