Hunters Hill Estate Precinct
Malvern East, STONNINGTON CITY
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Statement of Significance
What is significant?
The Hunters Hill Precinct comprises two subdivisions, namely, The Malvern Park and Hunters Hill Estates of c.1889 and c.1911 respectively. The Malvern Park Estate was partly developed as a residential subdivision immediately prior to the recession of the 1890s and the subsequent hiatus in building activity. Housing stock surviving from this period includes a group of small timber workers' cottages on Deakin Street. A small group of Victorian Italianate villas on Gillman Street is very slightly younger. The remainder of precinct was developed from c1911 as the Hunters Hill Estate on land formerly occupied by a nineteenth century dairy property. The later subdivision retains substantially intact streetscapes of detached Edwardian timber villas as well as examples of red brick villas and semi-detached pairs. A smaller number of interwar dwellings can also be found in the precinct generally taking the form of asymmetrical bungalows.
Elements which contribute to the significance of the precinct include (but are not limited to):
- intactness of built form across the Victorian, Edwardian and interwar periods. Dwellings typically survive with their presentation to the street largely unaltered;
- the extent to which original detailing survives. Edwardian buildings are of paticular note for their ornate timber detailing;
- low incidence of modern interventions such as vehicle accommodation in front setbacks;
- the retention of sympathetic low front fences in most sections of the precinct;
- the predominantly single-storey nature of the precinct;
- the detached form of the early dwellings (other than semi-detached pairs);
- generally uniform (within each streetscape) front setbacks and side setbacks;
- hipped or gabled roofscapes with chimneys and terracotta or slate tiles or plain corrugated galvanised steel cladding;
- generous allotments providing landscaped settings for dwellings. The higher density of development on Deakin Street forms a notable but valued variation to the more typical arrangement;
- street layout and subdivision patterns;
- mature street trees; and,
- bluestone kerbs, channels and laneways.
How is it significant?
The Hunters Hill Precinct is of local historical and aesthetic significance.
Why is it significant?
Historically, the Malvern Park Estate is significant as a rare pocket of Victorian housing in Malvern East created during the closing stages of the 1880s land boom. It is a rare instance of small cottages in suburban Malvern before Minimum Allotment campaigns of the early 1910s prohibited development of this scale, density or materiality. The precinct was only partly developed before the onset of the 1890s depression and remained relatively isolated for two decades. The precinct illustrates the way in which the extension of the tramline in the early 1910s facilitated the broader development of this section of the Municipality (Historic Theme: 3.3.5 Recovery and infill 1900-1940).
Subdivided in c.1911 and almost entirely developed by c.1920, the Hunters Hill Estate completed the earlier development connecting Westgarth Street to the network of streets developing to the south. The area provides evidence of the intense residential development in this part of Malvern prompted by the expansion of the electric tramline along Wattletree Road and the emergence of an Edwardian domestic style which would come to typify Malvern and illustrate the notion of rus in urb (Historic Theme: 8.2.2 'Country in the city' - suburban development in Malvern before 1920).
Aesthetically, the precinct is significant for its fine and cohesive streetscapes of Edwardian housing, characterised by asymmetrical composition, timber construction and/or ornamental detail with bay windows and verandahs with turned timber posts and ornamental timber fretwork. The area generally and Westgarth Street in particular is of particular significance for the quality and consistency of its building stock and high degree of intactness to its c.1911-c.1920 period of development. Deakin Street is also of note as an homogenous streetscape of Edwardian timber villas complimented by a substantially intact row of earlier Victorian timber villas and cottages. Examples of this type of modest working-class housing proliferated in the inner suburbs in the 1880s but are relatively rare in this part of Malvern. Other streetscapes within the precinct display a somewhat more eclectic mix of Victorian, Edwardian and interwar dwellings that illustrate the successive waves of development that shaped Malvern after the land boom period. The area is substantially intact to its c.1920 state particularly in those streetscapes away from the major thoroughfares of Wattletree and Tooronga Roads. The aesthetic significance of the precinct is further enhanced by the bluestone kerbing and mature deciduous street trees on Westgarth Street and the landscaped character more broadly.
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Hunters Hill Estate Precinct - Historical Australian Themes
The following themes are drawn from the Stonnington Thematic Environmental History (Context Pty Ltd, 2006, Addendum March 2009).
8.2.1 'Country in the city -suburban development in Malvern before 1920.
3.3.5 Recovery and infill 1900-1940.
Hunters Hill Estate Precinct - Physical Description 1
The precinct is a small residential area in the north-west corner of the block bounded by Wattletree, Burke, Dandenong and Tooronga roads. The northern part of the precinct, comprising Deakin and Gillman streets and the parts of Westgarth Street, retains housing stock from its initial phase of development in the late nineteenth and very early twentieth centuries. These Victorian houses generally take the form of detached single-storey villas with hipped slate or corrugated iron roofs or asymmetrical double-fronted dwellings trimmed with cast iron. The most complete Victorian streetscape in the precinct is located on the east side of Deakin Street where a row of modest timber cottages and timber villas on small allotments with narrow side setbacks survives. This timber cottage streetscape is complimented by a substantially intact row of c.1910 timber villas on the opposite side of Deakin Street. The northern part of the precinct also experienced a pattern of 'infill' development in the 1910s and 1920s resulting in red-brick Edwardian villas and semi-detached pairs in and around the late Victorian built form. Although not dating from either of the key development periods, a small number of interwar bungalows in the northern sections of Westgarth Street and elsewhere contribute in a modest way to the character of the area.
The southern half of the precinct, comprising Royston Avenue, Devonshire Road, much of Westgarth Street and Central Park Road is largely characterised by Edwardian era housing. This predominately takes the form of detached single-storey timber villas with detailing typically including terracotta tiled roofs, half-timbered gable ends and timber fretwork to verandahs supported on turned timber posts. Westgarth Street is of particular note for its substantially intact villas with fine timber detailing. Aside from its timber-clad villas, the precinct also retains good examples of dwellings built in red brick typical of Malvern's Edwardian housing more generally. Substantial villas in landscaped settings would come to be regarded as being quintessentially Malvern and supporting the idea of Malvern as offering the benefits of the City and the Country a rus in urb. These include an intact row of semi-detached brick cottages on Devonshire Road. In this area too, a small number of interwar flats and dwellings can also be found interspersed amongst the Edwardian building stock. These are generally sympathetic in scale and character to their (slightly) earlier neighbours and make a valued contribution to the character of the area.
Hunters Hill Estate Precinct - Local Historical Themes
8.2.1 'Country in the city' - suburban development in Malvern before 1920
3.3.5 Recovery and infill 1900-1940
Heritage Study and Grading
Stonnington - City of Stonnington Heritage Overlay Gap Study - Heritage Overlay Precincts Final Report
Author: Bryce Raworth P/L
Year: 2009
Grading: Various
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