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Claremont Homestead
12-16 KINSMEAD STREET WAURN PONDS - PROPERTY NUMBER 318833, GREATER GEELONG CITY
Claremont Homestead
12-16 KINSMEAD STREET WAURN PONDS - PROPERTY NUMBER 318833, GREATER GEELONG CITY
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Statement of Significance
What is significant?
Claremont Homestead has significance as one of very few surviving intact Victorian dwellings at Waurn Ponds. While the homestead has experienced some alterations, it is of the more intact examples of a mid-19th century homestead associated with farm cultivation and wine and fruit growing in the outer parts of Greater Geelong. It was constructed of bricks produced on site in 1857 to a design by local architects, Shaw and Dowden, for Thomas Powell. The property also has more enduring associations with four generations of the Baum family, farmers and orchardists, whose ownership from 1894 has spanned over 116 years. The fabric of significance is the single storey, Victorian Georgian styled dwelling with its hipped roofs clad in slate, brick wall construction and freestone plinths, brick chimneys, extent and concave form of the return verandah, front timber framed doorway and the timber framed double hung twelve paned windows. The setting, including the homestead garden to the front (north) of the dwelling, mature Norfolk Island Pine tree and the remnant orchard to the west also contribute to the significance of the place. The rear gabled timber outbuilding is of interest as an early survivor, but its very poor condition has undermined its integrity.
How is it significant?
Claremont Homestead has local historic, aesthetic and scientific significance to the City of Greater Geelong.
Why is it significant?
Claremont Homestead has historic significance for its associations with crop, vine and fruit growing in the Waurn Ponds and Barrabool Hills areas in the mid-19th century. The area became synonymous for wine growing and cultivated the largest quantity of vines in Victoria, and a significant quantity of fruit, at the time of the building of Claremont Homestead in 1857. Claremont Homestead is a physical embodiment of this previous historic and enduring land use. With its associations with Thomas Powell, original owner, it is also legacy of the British Imperial Government’s Free Bounty Immigration Scheme of the late 1830s, which encouraged skilled males to immigrate to Australia. Powell, an Irish carpenter (and later a successful brewer and farmer,) was induced to immigrate in 1839 as part of the Free Bounty Immigration Scheme (Criterion A).
Claremont Homestead is one of very few surviving, intact Victorian dwellings at Waurn Ponds built in the 1850s, and one of a select number of surviving rural, Victorian styled dwellings built in the 1850s in Greater Geelong (Criterion B).
Claremont Homestead is aesthetically significant as a representative and relatively intact example of a verandahed Victorian Georgian styled hipped roofed dwelling type. Of this type, it is one of a select number of surviving examples in the more rural (and previously rural) parts of Greater Geelong, and outer suburban Newtown (Criteria D & E). Like Claremont, most of the comparable examples of experienced some form of alteration.
The mature Norfolk Island pine tree, open front (north) homestead garden and to a lesser degree, the existing orchard are aesthetically significant as remnants of the early rural homestead setting and land use (Criterion E).
The mature Norfolk Island pine tree has scientific (botanical) significance as a remnant of an early rural homestead landscape in Greater Geelong, and a local heritage landmark on the property and immediate residential area (Criterion F).
Claremont Homestead is scientifically significant for its brick construction, the bricks having been made on the site. Together with the dwelling at 35 Lemins Road, it is one of two surviving mid-19th century homesteads at Waurn Ponds constructed of brick, the majority of comparable homesteads in the nearby Barrabool Hills being built of the locally ubiquitous Barrabool stone (Criterion F).
Claremont Homestead has historical significance for its associations with the prolific 19th century architect, J.L. Shaw, and the architectural practice of Shaw and Dowden. While numerous examples of the work of Shaw and Shaw and Dowden survive, Claremont Homestead is a rare rural example of its type in Greater Geelong associated with the architects (Criterion H).
Claremont Homestead has historical significance for its associations with the original owner, Thomas Powell, immigrant carpenter who became a successful business as owner of brewery. Prior to his residency at Claremont Homestead, Powell also contributed to community life as a Geelong Town Councillor (Criterion H).
Claremont Homestead has historical significance for its enduring associations with the Baum family, farmers and orchardists at the property from 1894 for over 116 years (Criterion H).
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