Oakover Hall
12 Stafford Street PRESTON, Darebin City
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Statement of Significance
Oakover Hall is of local architectural and historic significance.
The house, originally constructed in 1857, is the oldest surviving residence in Preston. It is among the largest surviving nineteenth century residences in Preston, along with Pleasant View (formerly Lyonsville), 131 Wood Street, Preston). The original owner of the house, Thomas Goodwin, was a major landowner in the district in the 1850s. It subsequent owner, Abraham Booth, was a prominent pastoralist and his purchase of the house in 1863 reflects the common practice among Victorian pastoralists in the nineteenth century of acquiring large suburban residences in addition to their country properties.
Oakover Hall appears almost certainly to have been designed by John Gill, one of the more prominent architects in the 1840s and 1850s in Melbourne. Although Gill designed a large number of residences from the mid 1840s, as well as churches and other buildings, Oakover Hall is one of relatively few surviving houses that can be reasonably definitely attributed to him; including Turinville, 53 Bernard Grove, Kew (cI847), possibly Invergowrie, Coppin Grove, Hawthorn (1849-50), Royal Terrace, Nicholson Street, Fitzroy (1854-6) and Grace Park House, Chrystobel Crescent, Hawthorn (1857). Although the extent to which the existing house reflects the original gill design or the 1875 reconstruction by Crouch and Wilson is unclear, the simplified Italianate character of the house is representative of larger residences in Melbourne suburbs from the 1850s to the 1870s.
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Oakover Hall - Physical Description 1
Oakover Hall is a large two-storey residence, apparently of bluestone construction, with hipped roofs. The service wing to the rear is constructed from coursed bluestone rubble, now painted. The front sections of the house have a simplified Italianate character with bracketed projecting eaves and painted rendered walls with moulded render quoining to the comers, architrave surrounds to the windows and a projecting bracketed string course at first floor window si11level. The extent to which the original house was altered in the course of its reconstruction in 1875 is unclear from the available physical evidence, although it is thought likely that much of the existing external detailing and probably much of the interior dates from these works. The interior, which has been converted to flats, has not been inspected and its intactness is unknown.
Heritage Study and Grading
Darebin - Darebin Heritage Review
Author: Andrew Ward
Year: 2000
Grading:
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THE GRANGEVictorian Heritage Register H1297
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COBURG 1Victorian Heritage Inventory
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PRESTON TRAM DEPOTVictorian Heritage Inventory
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