64 Bent Street
64 Bent Street MOONEE PONDS, MOONEE VALLEY CITY
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Statement of Significance
What is Significant?
The Edwardian Queen Anne house with Art Nouveau references at 64 Bent Street, Moonee Ponds, is significant. It was built c1914, most likely by its first owner, builder William Cook.
Significant elements include the:
Original building and roof forms, original chimney
roughcast rendered walls, timber base boards and notched weatherboards, fenestration, porch; and
decorative timber fretwork, brackets and barge boards, decorative gable ends, original window joinery and leaded glazing
The rear lean to addition is not significant.
How is it significant?
64 Bent Street is of local aesthetic significance to the City of Moonee Valley.
Why is it significant?
The house is a highly intact example of a modest Queen Anne house form, with a facade dominated by a central projecting gabled bay, and walls finished in roughcast render and weatherboards. It is distinguished from other examples of this type, however, by its elaborate front porch fretwork. This includes a timber balustrade with a diamond Chinoiserie pattern, the arched valance with wavy slats, and especially the striking timber keyhole arch at the entrance to the porch. This detail demonstrates how a builder might elevate a standard design with a creative use of ornament. (Criterion E)
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64 Bent Street - Physical Description 1
64 Bent Street, Moonee Ponds, is a single-fronted Queen Anne cottage. Sited on an allotment with a wide side setback, the dwelling fronts Bent Street to the north and abuts a bluestone laneway to the rear. It is a timber-framed construction with roughcast cement render above timber baseboards from sill height upwards; the central three weatherboards have been notched to give the appearance of shingle detailing. Bent Street slopes down gently in the direction of Moonee Ponds Creek in the east. The subject site is situated at the higher end of the street.
Comprising two intersecting corrugated iron-clad roof forms - a hipped roof with front-facing gablet running east-west and a projecting gabled roof room to the front - the building form is asymmetrically composed with the projecting gable being the most visible component of the principal elevation. A robust chimney of red brick with intervening square roughcast panels on the main shaft and an enlarged corbelled brick top surmounted by two terracotta chimney pots rises from the western section of the front room. The half-timbered gable sits above a roughcast rendered bolster. Encircling the roof on the eastern, western, northern, and possible southern, facades is modern, and square profile guttering. Unembellished bargeboards with rolled metal flashing accentuate the front gable end and frame the deep overhanging eaves, which, in turn, rest on sinuously moulded timber brackets. Centred below the gable end is a tripartite narrow casement window with top lights containing pressed coloured glass panes. Ornately detailed timber brackets support a corrugated iron hood above this window. A second, more squat, double-hung window looks out to Bent Street from a recessed wall plane on the western side of the building. A corrugated iron hood also covers this window.
A broad, low set of stairs on the north facade returns on the east to a raised timber platform porch. A simple vertical timber balustrade (probably a later alteration) gives way to a more elaborately designed timber fretwork of Chinoiserie influence and decorative timber valance. The passage is framed by a striking timber keyhole arch, this circular motif is repeated around the porch. The entrance comprises a door, transom window and sidelight. A timber-framed side-hung casement window with an upper light divided into two smaller, square panes, each containing a simplified Art Nouveau leadlight design, punctuates the western wall. On the eastern wall is a narrow double-hung sash window, with the same frame design, but of different proportions.
Set within an established garden the house is partially obscured by a medium sized liquidambar tree. Large shrubs and hedges have been planted behind the modern front picket fence and along the western wall of the house, with mowed grass making up the remainder of the shallow front garden. On the eastern side of the allotment is an asphalt driveway next to a short paling fence. The use of asphalt and apparent wear of the driveway suggests that it was an early construction.
64 Bent Street, Essendon, is of high integrity with very few changes visible to the original or early elements of the place. The building retains its original built forms, roughcast rendered walls, porch, and fenestration.
The integrity of the place overall is enhanced by the high level of intactness of these main elements, which include the original chimney, decorative timber fretwork, window joinery and leaded glazing.
The integrity of the building is minimally diminished by a new extension behind the rear lean-to, but this is not visible from the street frontage and has not required demolition of original building fabric.
The integrity of the place is enhanced by the early driveway.
Heritage Study and Grading
Moonee Valley - Moonee Valley 2017 Heritage Study
Author: Context
Year: 2019
Grading:
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FORMER CURATOR'S COTTAGEVictorian Heritage Register H1078
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FORMER MOONEE PONDS COURT HOUSEVictorian Heritage Register H1051
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ST MONICAS CATHOLIC CHURCHVictorian Heritage Register H1217
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"1890"Yarra City
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"AMF Officers" ShedMoorabool Shire
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"AQUA PROFONDA" SIGN, FITZROY POOLVictorian Heritage Register H1687
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'NORWAY'Boroondara City
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1 Mitchell StreetYarra City
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