Houses
59 Tennyson Street and 61 Tennyson Street MOONEE PONDS, MOONEE VALLEY CITY
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Statement of Significance
What is Significant?
59 and 61 Tennyson Street Moonee Ponds, a pair of Victorian era Italianate villas built in c.1892 is significant.
Significant fabric includes:
single-storey, detached built form and its position as a pair (both 59 and 61);
original hipped roof form (59 and 61) and slate roofing (61 only);
original pattern of fenestration and elements of window and door joinery (both 59 and 61);
unpainted brick chimneys, eaves details and verandah decoration (both 59 and 61);
unpainted face brickwork (both 59 and 61); and
setback at the front (both 59 and 61).
The rear extensions at both 59 and 61 Tennyson Street and the later tiled roof at number 59 are not significant.
How is it significant?
59 and 61 Tennyson Street, Moonee Ponds, are of local architectural significance to the City of Moonee Valley.
Why is it significant?
59 and 61 Tennyson Street, Moonee Ponds, are significant as a pair of Victorian-era Italianate villas. Single-storey villas of the Victorian era designed in the Italianate style are well represented on the Heritage Overlay in Moonee Valley. Detached houses are a common typology and the majority of these are single storey. Similar examples (although not found in pairs) are found at 23 Brown Avenue, Ascot Vale, c1891 (HO392), and 28 Nicholson Street, Essendon, 1891 (HO265). Pairs of detached houses are less common, with the only other example on the Heritage Overlay at 27 and 29 Sydney Road, Ascot Vale, built in 1892 (HO283).
59 and 61 Tennyson Street, Moonee Ponds, demonstrate the Italianate style through their asymmetrical building forms with projecting front room and canted bay windows, cast iron verandahs, and bichrome brickwork to the walls using dark brown brick as the main wall colour offset in cream string coursing and moulding. Other elements of the style include including the unpainted brick chimneys, slate roof (of No 61), eaves details and window and door joinery. 59 and 61 Tennyson Street are of high integrity comparable with other examples and with very few changes visible to original or early elements of the place. (Criterion D)
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Houses - Physical Description 1
59 and 61 Tennyson Street, Moonee Ponds, comprise a pair of single-storey, Victorian-era brick villas erected in an Italianate style. The pair is sited on the western side of Tennyson Street at its intersection with Montague Street, a wide residential thoroughfare with a generous eastern slope at this juncture. This topography, coupled with a gentle southerly aspect, contributes to a significant vista formed by the pair on approach when travelling west up Montague Street. Each house has a generous setback allowing for a large front garden space, contained within a driveway to the north of each property and a cast-iron palisade fence to the front (east) allotment boundary of number 59, and a timber picket fence to that of number 61.
The original c.1892 section of each residence is identical in its asymmetrical form, with a projecting canted bay to the principal facade as well as a rectangular projection to the side (south) elevation. The roof form comprises a main hip to the northern wing with a small, semi-octagonal roof to the canted bay, and a hipped roof in an S-shape to the southern portion of the house. Number 59 has a roof of later terracotta tiles while that of number 61 is clad with slate. Each house has tall, bi-chrome brick chimneys with Italianate-style rendered cornices, retaining four and three chimneys respectively. The eaves to the principal facades are supported on moulded brackets. A raised, return verandah wraps around the east and south elevations of each dwelling, with an ogee profile roof of corrugated iron supported on slender iron columns with Corinthian capitals, cast-iron brackets and frieze. Each villa has bi-chrome brick walls, predominately red to number 59 and brown to number 61, each with contrasting stringcourses and headers in cream brick to the principal windows. There are three segmental arched double-hung windows to the canted bays, while the verandahs house two double-hung sash windows to the principal facades. All windows retain masonry sills. The southern elevation to each house presumably contains the principal entries, though this view is obscured from street view.
A driveway to the north of each property (concrete to number 59 and brick-paved to number 61), leads directly to later garages at the rear of the house. The front yards have a similar arrangement, of a brick path (presumably early or original) from the drive leading across the front of the house to two masonry steps servicing the verandah, garden beds along the exterior walls, and a central garden space. Number 61 also has a path leading from a pedestrian gate at the front of the property directly to the verandah, and its central garden space is geometrically landscaped with low hedges and feature plantings. A large grassed area to number 59 is contained within a later, albeit sympathetic, cast-iron double palisade fence, resting on a heavy, stepped basalt plinth with ornate cast-iron gateposts topped with finials, and a matching gate. Number 61 has a timber picket fence with posts capped with cast-iron pieces, a matching vehicular gate, and a timber pedestrian gate with arched top rail. Separating the properties to the northern boundary of number 59 is a capped timber, paling fence with protruding pier, while a high hedge separates number 61 from the neighbouring property to its north. There are substantial, later, single-storey extensions to the rear of each dwelling, and while mostly hidden from street view, but largely erected in an Italianate-style to match the original residences.
59 & 61 Tennyson Street, Moonee Ponds, are of highintegrity with veryfewchanges visible to original or early elements of the place. The buildings retain their original building forms and roof forms, verandahs, fenestration, and original building setbacks.
The integrity of the buildings is enhanced by thehighlevel of intactness of these main elements, which include the unpainted brick chimneys, slate roof (of Number 61), eaves details, verandah decoration, unpainted face brickwork, and window and door joinery.
The integrity of each building is slightlydiminished by their rear extensions, which, although relatively large in the case of Number 61, have a modest scale and are hardly visible from the street frontage; the integrity of Number 59 is diminished by the later tiled roof.
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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"1890"Yarra City
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'BRAESIDE'Boroondara City
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'ELAINE'Boroondara City
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