Beswicke
49 Mathoura Road TOORAK, STONNINGTON CITY
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Statement of Significance
What is significant?
'Beswicke', at 49 Mathoura Road, Toorak is significant. It was built in 1889 for bank manager William Meudell, and designed by noted Melbourne architect, John Beswicke of Wilson & Beswicke.
'Beswicke' is a two-storey Italianate villa with rendered masonry walls and an asymmetrical plan form incorporating a projecting bay to one side of a two-storey masonry arcaded verandah with unusual detail.
'Beswicke' is significant to the extent of its nineteenth century form and fabric.
The modern alterations and additions, including the contemporary masonry front wall, are not significant.
How is it significant?
'Beswicke', at 49 Mathoura Road, Toorak is of local architectural (and associational) and aesthetic significance to the City of Stonnington.
Why is it significant?
'Beswicke', at 49 Mathoura Road, Toorak is a fine and intact example of a substantial Victorian residence built for middle-class residents of Toorak during the boom years of the 1880s and 1890s. The house adopts strong characteristic features representative of the Italianate style, including the asymmetrical plan form, hipped roof with bracketed eaves clad in slate, round-arched windows, and refined classicising detail executed in cement render. It is also significant for its association with John Beswicke, who was an important late-Victorian architect, responsible for many villas in Toorak, Kew and Hawthorn, as well as Stonnington landmarks Malvern Town Hall (1885) and St John's Church, Malvern (1890). (Criteria D & H)
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Beswicke - Physical Description 1
The residence at 49 Mathoura Road is a substantial two-storey Italianate villa that occupies a relatively wide allotment on the west side of Mathoura Road in Toorak. The building is set back from the street behind a mid-sized front garden which is concealed behind a high contemporary front wall.
Constructed in 1889, the building adopts a common late-Victorian asymmetrical form with a two-storey canted bay to one side of a two-storey verandah. This asymmetrical form became popular during the 1880s, and in this respect the house at 49 Mathoura Road stands a large but relatively typical suburban Italianate villa. In this instance however, the more common two-storey cast-iron verandah is replaced by an arcaded verandah. The building has a hipped slate roof with a single rendered chimney with a moulded cornice.
The house is distinguished by the refined Italianate detailing including the use of the round-headed arch for all windows and the arcades, the elaborate front door and interesting keystones. At both levels, the arcade rests on oversized Corinthian capitals with slender fluted shafts separated at the first floor level by an arcaded balustrade. The run hood moulds are detailed with unusual cast keystones which contain an Aesthetic Movement pattern. At the ground floor level, the keystones are capped with unusual curved hoods. The building appears to have been re-rendered recently (c2009-2010) so it has lost the original ruled finish to the walls, but the cast and run details appear to remain intact (with the overpainting stripped off them). Other cast details include the elaborate eaves brackets with cricket-bat mouldings and rosettes.
Windows to the facade are rounded arch double-hung sashes which are full height to the ground floor canted bay and beneath the arcade. The elaborate front door is intact complete with rounded arch highlight and sidelights that retain decorative glazing. The etched glazing to the highlight incorporating the name 'Beswicke' may not be original. The verandah tiles may have been sympathetically replaced as part of works undertaken c2009 (Realestate.com.au, 2011).
The exterior of the house as viewed and appreciated from Mathoura Road is substantially intact despite the loss of the original ruled render finish and the extensive addition and basement garage constructed c2009 by Jackson Clement Burrows Architects. The high front wall was constructed in 2014.
Beswicke - Local Historical Themes
This place illustrates the following themes, as identified in the Stonnington Thematic Environmental History (Context Pty Ltd, rev. 2009):
3.3.3 Speculators and land boomers
8.2 Middle-class suburbs and the suburban ideal
8.4.1 Houses as a symbol of wealth, status and fashion
Heritage Study and Grading
Stonnington - City of Stonnington Victorian Houses Study
Author: City of Stonnington
Year: 2016
Grading: A2
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PRIMARY SCHOOL NO. 1467Victorian Heritage Register H1032
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COMO HOUSEVictorian Heritage Register H0205
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BARWONVictorian Heritage Register H0825
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