Duplexes
127-129 Kent Street and 131-133 Kent Street and 135-137 Kent Street FLEMINGTON, MOONEE VALLEY CITY
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Statement of Significance
What is Significant?
The row of duplexes at 127-137 Kent Street, Flemington, is significant. This group of six semi-detached dwellings was built for owner and neighbour William John Patten in 1936-37.
Significant fabric includes the;
Original building and roof form;
Recessed porches and fenestrations;
Terracotta roof tiles and chimneys;
Gabled parapets and textured rendered walls with red-blue clinker and tapestry brick details.
Original window and door joinery and leaded glass sash windows;
Side wing walls and gate openings; and
Brick fences and mild-steel gates at number 127 and 131-135
The aluminium framed windows and stone cladding at number 129 and window hood at number 137 are not significant.
How is it significant?
127-137 Kent Street, Flemington, is of aesthetic significance to the City of Moonee Valley.
Why is it significant?
The row of duplexes at 127-137 Kent Street, Flemington, is a fine representative example of the denser development that became more common in the City of Moonee Valley during the interwar period, which was designed to fit into an area of more prestigious detached dwellings, while forming a cohesive and symmetrically balanced composition as a whole. The dwellings demonstrate elements of the Old English style - in the use of vergeless gables - and Art Deco - in the parapeted front of the central duplex. Other materials and details are typical of many styles in the 1930s, including the contrast between textured render and clinker and tapestry brick, dominant chimneys, shouldered porch openings, simple leaded glass windows, and masonry gateways. The group is enhanced by the retention of original masonry fences and mild steel gates to numbers 127 and 131-135. (Criterion E)
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Duplexes - Physical Description 1
127-137 Kent Street, Flemington, a group of three interwar semi-detached duplexes, was erected for the same owner in a single building campaign. The group comprises modest, single-storey dwellings with masonry walls and terracotta-tiled roofs, each with the same shallow setback behind (some original) low front fences, allowing for small garden spaces. The group's north-facing corner location is in a short section of Kent Street, between Tunbridge Street and the railway serving Ascot Vale and the northern suburbs (as well as formerly being the original North East main line to Albury). The pairs are alike in many ways yet also display evident stylistic contrasts. Hints of Old English detailing are present throughout, in the use of red-blue clinker and tapestry brickwork dressings, recessed porches and front gables, whilst Art Deco motifs present themselves in leaded glass and stepped brickwork giving a Moderne stylistic touch.
Each residence has a low, hipped roof of variegated terracotta tiles with the roof of each duplex pair separated by the parapet of the party wall. The dwellings at the ends (numbers 127 and 137) also have a gabled roof projecting from the main hip to the front (north) facade, with a vergeless gable end with decoratively corbelled eaves, in the Old English manner. The six houses are designed to create a symmetrical composition, the two end duplexes are mirror-images of each other (with gable to the outer dwelling and a hipped roof to the inner one), while the central pair shares a symmetrical parapet-front.
Each pair has at least two red brick chimneys rising from the central party wall, each with tapestry brick detailing and retaining a pair of terracotta chimney pots, save for the eastern duplex (numbers 127-129), where only one chimney towards the front of the building remains. The western duplex (numbers 135-137) also has a dominant red-blue clinker brick chimney shaft with decorative tapestry brickwork to its principal facade, with staggered ledges to the upper shaft and a single terracotta chimney pot.
The principal facade to each dwelling is finished in textured render, while the side elevations of each duplex remain as plain, red brick walls. Each residence has a recessed entry contained within a small, slightly raised porch, accessed through openings of varying shapes to the front (north) and side (east or west). Numbers 131, 135 and 137 have shoulder-arched porch openings, while those to number 133 are rectangular. The northern opening to the porch of number 127 comprises a depressed arch with shouldering, and number 129 has a northern semi-circular arched opening. Numbers 129 and 133 have a shingled eave above their side porch opening.
Numbers 131-137 feature exposed brick base courses and tapestry brick detailing to lintels and above archways. The western duplex has a gabled projection to number 137, with corbelling in contrasting tapestry brickwork and a chequered tapestry nogging to the apex. The facade to the eastern duplex (number 127) has been overpainted, concealing brick quoining and gable detailing (its corbelled brickwork appears to be clinker with the tapestry nogging looking like herringbone in pattern), while number 129 has been recently clad with exposed aggregate concrete tiles to the sill line. Number 127 has a metal stylised sunburst motif to its gable end, presumably of recent date.
The central duplex (numbers 131-133) has a high, stepped parapet with clinker brick capping and a Moderne tapestry brick detailing to its centre. It retains exposed brick quoining to the main body of number 133 and both the porch columns and main body of number 131.
Front door openings are original, as are the abutting, narrow timber-framed windows of leaded glass. Those to numbers 127, 129, 131 and 133 feature an Art Deco floral motif, while those to numbers 133 and 135 are diamond-paned. Some original tapestry brick sills to these windows have been replaced. Each dwelling has a large window opening to its front facade. Number 137 retains its original double-hung sash windows with upper sashes of diamond-pane leading and window box supported by corbelled brickwork, beneath a neo-Edwardian hood that conceals its original tapestry brick lintel. The original window opening to number 135 has had its glazing replaced (in aluminium) and is missing its planter box. Windows to the parapeted bay of number 131 have been replaced, yet those to 133 appear to be an original arrangement of a central timber-framed double-hung sash window with smaller double-hung sashes either side. These adjoining windows have smaller upper sashes of leaded glass in an Art Deco floral motif. Each slightly recessed wall space either side of the parapeted bay retains an original, small timber-framed window with the same leaded pattern.
Tunbridge Street, a quiet residential street with small nature strips and overhanging plane trees, bounds the western elevation of the group. The visible side wall to number 137 has three windows, slightly obscured by a recent Colorbond fence. Each one is timber-framed and has a tapestry brick lintel. There is a small leaded window toward the front of the building and in the centre is a pair of double-hung sash windows with upper sashes of leaded glass in an unusual diamond-pane pattern, with some diamonds having wedges of coloured glass inserted. Number 137 also has a rear brick room visible from this elevation, with a skillion roof of terracotta tiles, and a simple, presumably double-hung sash window to its western wall. A small timber pergola connects from this room to the south.
The property boundaries between the pairs are delineated with a simple, timber, paling fence, terminated by a solid pier of red-blue clinker brick toward the front of the properties. Solid rendered brick lintels with clinker brick capping connect either side of the central pier from the exterior wall to create a side entry, screened with a simple timber gate.
At the front property boundaries of numbers 131, 133 and 135 are original low brick, cement-render-capped fences that echo the decoration and materials of the corresponding dwellings and mild-steel gates. The original fence to number 127 has been overpainted, and that of number 129 has been replaced with a timber picket fence. Number 137 has a newer simple red brick fence with brick piers, sympathetic in its scale and profile. Each dwelling has a modest garden space, and most are planted with low-lying shrubs. High shrubs and hedges to numbers 131, 133 and 135 slightly obscure views to the facades. The original path paving appears to have been brick, but some have been paved over with concrete.
127-137 Kent Street, Flemington, is of relativelyhighintegrity with fewchangesvisible to original or early elements of the place, especially numbers 131-137. The buildings retain the original building form of each of these six semi-detached residences, original roof forms, porches, fenestration, and original building setbacks.
The integrity of the building is enhanced by the relativelyhighlevel of intactness of these main elements, which include details such the terracotta tiles, original chimneys, gabled parapets, unpainted areas of face brickwork, original window and door joinery, leaded glass window sashes, and side wing walls with gate openings.
The integrity of the buildings is diminished by the lack of uniformity of original fabric especially the front windows of numbers 127-131 although sufficient early details remain to appreciate the original design intent across the group as a whole.
The integrity of the place is diminished by lack of uniformity of front fences and partial loss of original fabric.
Despite the mixed nature of the work to each individual residence, the integrity of the place as a group of semi-detached residences is enhancedby the lack of visible extensions to the rear of the place.
Heritage Study and Grading
Moonee Valley - Moonee Valley 2017 Heritage Study
Author: Context
Year: 2019
Grading:
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FORMER FLEMINGTON COURT HOUSEVictorian Heritage Register H1470
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NATHAN'S TERRACEVictorian Heritage Register H1205
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POLICE STATION AND LOCK-UPVictorian Heritage Register H0844
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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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1 Fordham CourtYarra City
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10 Fordham CourtYarra City
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