2 Grange Avenue
2 Grange Avenue CANTERBURY, BOROONDARA CITY
HO590 Grange Avenue Residential Precinct
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Statement of Significance
What is Significant?
The Grange Avenue Precinct comprises the interwar development on the north side of Grange Avenue, at 2-10 Grange Avenue. Grange Avenue was created in a subdivision of the Victorian estate called 'The Grange', by its owners the Rennicks, in 1915. They created Grange Avenue and View Street, on the west side of Balwyn Road, and began selling off residential blocks in 1916. The blocks comprising 2-10 Grange Avenue were all sold by 1919, with house construction beginning that same year. One of the first buyers was Ada Vanselow. She was the wife of Albert Vanselow, a builder and timber merchant with connections to the Rennicks ('The Grange' was given as his address in 1919). Vanselow soon built a house for himself at 10 Grange Avenue, and is documented as the builder for the four other houses as well. The second to last house built in the row was No. 2, designed by Alfred Bidgway, an architect of substantial middle-class homes in the Port Melbourne area in the late 1890s to about 1915, who had relocated from Port Melbourne to 7 Balwyn Road, Canterbury, in 1912.
The street is planted with mature Plane trees, which have good form and intactness on the north side of the street.
Most of the early owners of the houses, the Vanselow, White and Faragher families, were linked by family or other ties, as evidenced by the pattern of inheritance, and their ownership is characterised by very long tenure.
The houses are all situated on generous blocks with similar front and side setbacks. Two have identical picket fences that reproduce the original form (Nos 2 and 6), and Nos 2, 8 and 10 retain wide curving front paths.
The houses are all substantial Arts & Crafts attic-style bungalows constructed of red brick with roughcast render and timber shingles to the multiplicity of gables. The steeply-pitched roofs are all clad in terracotta Marseille tiles and the chimneys all have a slender red brick shaft with a band of roughcast near the top and a flat projecting cap above that (apart from No 8 where it has been removed). They all have strong similarities in massing, with a main transverse gable roof, one or two bow windows (curved bay windows) to the facade often below a tiled hood, and a variety of major and minor projecting gables to the front, often sheltering the front verandah. No 10 has a particularly strong major front gable, making the transverse gable secondary. Pleasing variation is provided both by the arrangement of front gables and gabled dormers, and by the differing verandah supports, which range from round-headed and flat arches and buttressed piers, to typical California Bungalow pylons resting on brick piers. Each house also has an individual pattern of Art Nouveau floral leadlights to highlights, door surrounds and some sashes. Two houses (Nos. 4 & 8) have front doors with dramatic quarter-circle glazing. Nos. 2 and 10 have identical highwaisted ledged doors with very wide sidelights. Nos 2, 4, 8 and 10 have identical tessellated tile floors on their front verandahs.
The house at No 2, designed by Bidgway, and built after numbers 4, 6 and 10, differs in the use of a timber-shingled gable above the front bow window, and the expression of the east elevation - once visible from Balwyn Road - as a second facade.
The houses are generally highly intact, with later extensions at Nos. 4 and 8 set behind the line of the main roof, though visible from the public domain. An attic dormer was also added to No 8 in 1930, which is sympathetic in detail and form to the house, but which required the removal of the front chimney.
How is it significant?
The Grange Avenue Precinct, at 2-10 Grange Avenue, Canterbury, is of local historical and aesthetic significance to the City of Boroondara. Page 18 of 19
Why is it significant?
The Grange Avenue Precinct is of historic significance as a subdivision that is representative of small-scale interwar subdivisions in the former City of Camberwell, which saw the breakup of large estates, such as 'The Grange', into middle-class residential areas including Grange Avenue and View Street. The substantial nature and high quality of the design of the houses at 2-10 Grange Avenue exemplify the quintessential middle-class interwar character for which suburbs in the former City of Camberwell are celebrated. (Criterion A)
The Grange Avenue Residential Precinct is of aesthetic significance for the strong and visually cohesive streetscape created by the row of houses which share a common style, setback, scale, major roof forms, materials and decorative details. Paired with their overall visual unity, the houses are individually and skillfully designed variations on a theme, expressed by different combinations of secondary roof gables and dormers, verandah supports and leadlight windows. They are also high quality interwar houses, at least one of architect design, which are substantial for the area, and good examples of the Arts & Crafts attic-style bungalow. They are generally highly intact to their period of construction, and have been well maintained. They are enhanced by the mature Plane street trees on the wide nature strip. (Criteria D & E)
No 2 Grange Avenue is particularly distinguished by its superior level of detail and finishes, particularly seen in the complex massing of the front gable, the gabled 'roof' above the front bay window, and the fine brickwork of the arched brick porch entry. It helps demonstrates the evolution of architect Arthur Bidgway's high-quality middle-class houses from the Victorian and Edwardian villas found in Port Melbourne, to this very up-to-date interpretation of the Arts and Crafts style with California Bungalow elements in 1921. (Criteria E & H)
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Heritage Study and Grading
Boroondara - Camberwell Conservation Study
Author: Graeme Butler
Year: 1991
Grading:Boroondara - Individual Heritage Citations
Author: City of Boroondara
Year: 2016
Grading:
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CANTERBURY MANSIONSVictorian Heritage Register H0869
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RESIDENCE (FORMERLY COLINTON)Victorian Heritage Register H1399
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SHRUBLANDSVictorian Heritage Register H2037
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