Ceres Primary School
605 Barrabool Road CERES, GREATER GEELONG CITY
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Statement of Significance
What is Significant?
Ceres Primary School, 605 Barrabool Road, has significance as an educational and community hub since 1875 valued by the local Ceres community. Constructed as a one-roomed gabled school building of local Barrabool stone in 1875, it represented a standard Education Department styled 80-type school designed by the Chief Architect of the Department, Henry Bastow. Today, the school is an amalgam of the original design and the major alterations carried out by the Chief Architect of the Public Works Department, Percy Everett in 1949-50, following substantial storm damage to the school in 1948. In addition to being an important education centre for local Primary school children, the school has played host to different community activities including Arbor Day tree plantings in the early 20th century. The fabric of significance includes the centrally-located stone school building, mature Washingtonia Robusta Palm tree at the front and the hipped roofed timber shelter shed (built in 1934 probably to a design by the Chief Architect of the Public Works Department, Percy Everett). This shelter shed is a rare known surviving interwar example of a State School pavilion in the Greater Geelong area.
How is it significant?
Ceres Primary School, 605 Barrabool Road, Ceres, is historically and socially significant at a LOCAL level.
The timber shelter shed at the Ceres Primary School, 605 Barrabool Road, Ceres, is aesthetically significance at a LOCAL level.
Why is it significant?
Ceres Primary School, 605 Barrabool Road, has historical significance for its enduring associations with the development and progress of State education for local school children since 1875 (Criterion A). From this time, the school has been the centre for education and social activities in the Ceres area. It has associations with several teachers and locals, including John Matthew Hartshorn, first Head Teacher who served from 1875 until 1894 (and previously as Head Teacher at Barrabool Hills Common School No. 50 from 1867) (Criterion H). Hartshorn and other staff that followed were the guiding forces in the education of local children. The school also has associations with Henry Bastow, Chief Architect of the Education Department, who was responsible for the original gabled school building; and Percy Everett, Chief Architect of the Public Works Department who designed the "Modern" shallow pitched roofed alterations in 1949 following substantial storm damage to the building. The historical significance of the Ceres School is embodied in the surviving historic fabric: centrally located early school building constructed of Barrabool stone (an amalgam of different standard design philosophies for School buildings in the 19th and mid 20th centuries), mature Washingtonia Robusta Palm tree at the front of the site (which appears to have been planted in 1901 to celebrate the raising the Union Jack flag at the School for the first time); and the hipped roofed timber shelter shed (built in 1934 probably to a design by Percy Everett, having replaced an earlier pavilion on the site).
Ceres Primary School, 605 Barrabool Road, has social significance for the important educational role the site has played in the life and development of local school children since 1875 until the present day (Criterion G). It is recognised and valued by sections of the Ceres community for this reason.
The hipped roofed timber shelter shed at the Ceres Primary School, 605 Barrabool Road, has aesthetic significance as a rare known surviving example of an interwar State School outbuilding that demonstrates its original design (Criterion E). The modest scale and hipped form, together with the timber weatherboard wall cladding with timber lattice screening in the upper portions, and the exposed timber rafters in the eaves are those intact design traits that reflect its original appearance. While reflecting a standardized design approach by Percy Everett, Chief Architect of the Public Works Department, it is now one of few known to be extant.
The early Ceres Primary School building, 605 Barrabool Road, has aesthetic interest as a surviving amalgam of standardized State School design philosophies in the 19th and mid 20th centuries. This is evidence in the rectangular layout, Barrabool stone walls and single timber framed 12 paned double hung windows (reflective of the original design by Henry Bastow in 1875) and in the shallow-pitched roofs, raised roofed portion with clerestorey windows, broad eaves and banks of timber framed windows (a legacy of the major modernization designed by Percy Everett in 1949). While of aesthetic interest, the school building is not considered to have sufficient integrity of either era to meet an aesthetic/architectural significance threshold. There are more intact examples of single roomed State School designs of the 1870s in the Greater Geelong area, while there are more substantial and intact, purpose-built mid 20th century school buildings that embody the Modern design philosophies for State Schools by Percy Everett in Victoria.
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Ceres Primary School - Physical Conditions
The Ceres Primary School, 605 Barrabool Road, Ceres is situated on sloping ground on the southern side of the road, comprising a near rectangular layout. The front is marked by a mature cypress hedge with a central entrance opening and another opening on the east side. The latter entrance is marked by a low solid Barrabool stone fence with name plate that reads "Ceres P.S. No. 1602 Est. 1875" and cyclone wire mesh vehicular and pedestrian gates supported by timber posts. Immediately behind the hedge on the east side is an asphalt play area and skillion roofed buildings. There is another skillion roofed building on the west side, together with children's play structures.
Centrally located is the original stone school building. It has a broadly projecting shallow pitched hipped main roof (built 1949-50), together with an elevated roofed portion (built 1949-50) with an introduced shallow gabled form (having replaced a shallow-hipped roof). These roofs are clad in introduced tray deck, having replaced asbestos roof cladding in earlier years. The raised roofed portion has early (1949-50) timber framed clerestorey windows on the north (front) elevation. The Barrabool stone walls - including the rough hewn plinth with dressed coursed stonework above - reflect the original fabric of 1875. Also original are the three single window openings on the east elevation, with 12 paned timber framed double hung windows. The front elevation has a bank of three 12 paned full length windows that replaced the original raised bank of windows in 1949-50. The original stone building is dominated at the front by the introduced gabled administration wing. A remnant of the early cloak room wing is evident in the flat-roofed section adjoining the north wall of the school building (west side).
Adjacent to the old stone school to the north-east is the early timber shelter shed built in 1934. The modestly scaled pavilion has a hipped roof form clad in corrugated sheet metal (with an introduced bay of clear roof sheeting at the front) with broad eaves and exposed timber rafters. There is a large central door opening at the front (with an introduced door), the walls being clad in timber weatherboards, the upper open portions having timber lattice screening.
All other buildings and structures appear to have been introduced in more recent years, including the large flat and skillion roofed wing to the south-east of the old stone building, smaller gabled outbuildings and the shade sail structures.
At the rear (south of the site) is a grassed sports ground with running track. There is an asphalt basketball court in the south-east corner. The western and southern boundaries of the school site are planted with young Cypress trees.
Photo 2: Distance view (from school car park to the north-east) of the Ceres School complex, 2017. Photo 3: Detail of front elevation of the old Ceres Primary School building, 2017. Photo 4: Early timber shelter shed, north & east elevations, 2017. Photo 5: Mature Washingtonia Robusta Palm tree, 2017.
Heritage Study and Grading
City of Greater Geelong - Ceres Heritage Citations Project
Author: Dr David Rowe
Year: 2018
Grading: Local
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