City of Brimbank

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

Final report

10 January 2014

Prepared for

the

City of Brimbank

Report Register

This report register documents the development and issue of the report entitled ‘City of

Brimbank Heritage Gaps Report’ undertaken by Context Pty Ltd in accordance with our

internal quality management system.

Project

No.

Issue

No.

Notes/description

Issue

Date

Issued to

1530/25 1

Draft report (part)

4/09/13 Catherine Hunichen

1530/21 2

Draft report (entire)

4/11/13 Catherine Hunichen

1520/25 3

Final report

10/01/14 Catherine Hunichen



Context Pty Ltd 2014

Project Team:

Natica Schmeder, Associate

Jessie Briggs, Consultant

David Helms, Heritage Planning + Management

Context Pty Ltd

22 Merri Street, Brunswick 3056

Phone 03 9380 6933

Facsimile 03 9380 4066

Email context@contextpl.com.au

Web www.contextpl.com.au

CONTENTS

1 BACKGROUND

1

1.1 Purpose

1

1.2 New place citations

1

1.3 Citation revisions

1

1.4 Corrections to HO Schedule and maps

2

2 KEY FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

3

2.1 Key findings

3

2.2.1 Places of individual significance

3

2.2 Statutory Recommendations

3

2.2.1 Individual HOs

3

2.2.2 Part of existing precinct

3

2.2.3 Corrections to HO Schedule and maps

5

2.2.4 Revisions to reference document

5

APPENDIX A – NEW CITATIONS

6

Hampshire House, 233-241 Hampshire Road, Sunshine

6

Richards’ Dairy, 44 Hampshire Road, Sunshine

11

Former Headlie Taylor House and Sunshine Boys’ Hostel, 129-131 Durham Road,

Sunshine

17

Shop and residence, 19-21 Sydney Street, Albion

24

APPENDIX B – REVISED CITATIONS

29

Presbyterian Manse / Kirby House, 127 Durham Road, Sunshine

29

Parsons House, 114 Morris Street, Sunshine (HO114)

33

Former Church of Christ, 81-83 Hampshire Road, Sunshine (HO125)

36

Sunshine Picture Theatre, 126-128 Hampshire Road, Sunshine, (HO127)

38

HO19 – Commonwealth Munitions Housing Estate, Sunshine

41

HO20 – Concrete Housing Estate, Leith Avenue, Sunshine

48

HO21 – ICI Residential Heritage Area, Deer Park

52

HO25 – Railway Station Estate, Sunshine

57

APPENDIX C – CORRECTIONS

64

HO130 – Shops, 193-199 Hampshire Road, Sunshine

65

HO3 – Massey Ferguson Complex, Sunshine

68

CITY OF BRIMBANK

1 BACKGROUND

1.1 Purpose

Context Pty Ltd was commissioned to carry out strategic heritage work for Brimbank City

Council to address a number of errors and specific gaps noted in the Brimbank Heritage

Overlay Schedule and corresponding heritage citations over the past four years.

This work can be divided into three basic categories:



Preparation of new place citations, both for places outside of the Heritage Overlay and

those already within an HO precinct;



Revisions of existing place and precinct citations, including places and precincts already on

the Heritage Overlay and those not yet on it;



Correction of mapping and HO Schedule errors.

The statutory recommendations resulting from this work are detailed in section 2.2. They

include amendments to the Heritage Overlay, which will require a planning scheme

amendment, and updating of reference documents, which will not.

1.2 New place citations

The following places were identified as gaps in the coverage of Brimbank’s Heritage Overlay

and the assessment of their heritage values was considered a priority:



Hampshire House, 233-241 Hampshire Road, Sunshine, of 1924, designed by architect J

Raymond Robinson.



Richards’ Dairy, 44 Hampshire Road, Sunshine, of 1938. Currently listed as non

contributory to precinct HO25.



Headlie Taylor House/Sunshine Boys Hostel, 131 Durham Road, of 1938. Currently listed

as contributory to precinct HO23, but its built date is outside of the defined period of

significance for the precinct.



Shop & residence, 19-21 Sydney Street, Albion, of the 1920s. Contributory to precinct

HO24, but ‘Prohibited Uses Permitted’ should be ticked for this property, so an individual

citation is required. This will allow the on-going use of the 1920s corner shop as a business,

contributing to its long-term preservation.

These new citations are found in Appendix A.

1.3 Citation revisions

The citations for the following places and precincts need to be revised to correct errors, add

newly identified information, and update descriptions. One of the eight citations is for a place

that is not currently on the Heritage Overlay, while the others already are.



Kirby House, 127 Durham Road, Sunshine. Complete citation prepared for 2007 Study,

but not put on the Heritage Overlay. Citation needs to be updated to current standards and

update description.

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT



House, 114 Morris Street, Sunshine (HO114). The house has been altered since the 2007

Study. Need to update the description and consider whether it still warrants an individual

HO (or is merely contributory to precinct HO25).



Sunshine Picture Theatre (HO127). Add information about the architect.



Church of Christ, Sunshine (HO125). Add information about the built dates and architect.



Railway Estate Precinct, Sunshine (HO25). Correct the descriptions and built-dates of the

contributory buildings. Consider whether the period of significance should be redefined,

and if so, reclassify the contributory/non-contributory buildings. Consider if the boundaries

should be redefined accordingly.



Commonwealth Munitions Housing, Sunshine (HO19). Make minor corrections to house

descriptions (e.g., some shown as concrete are brick), and addresses (changes relating to lot

subdivisions). Add information gathered on their construction from contemporary sources.



Concrete Housing Estate, Sunshine (HO20). Correct descriptions and built date for 55

Hampshire Street (which was built later). Add information gathered from contemporary

articles about their patented method of construction and their designer.



ICI Heritage Area, Deer Park (HO21). Correct descriptions and built dates for

contributory houses within the estate, based on aerial photos and rate book research. Add

the information found to the precinct history and contributory building list.

These revised citations are found in Appendix B.

1.4 Corrections to HO Schedule and maps



Shops, 193-199 Hampshire Road, Sunshine (HO130). Correct the extent on the basis of

inspection and historical maps and plans.



Massey Ferguson Complex, Sunshine (HO3). Correct the entry in the HO Schedule to

correspond with its status as a State-listed place.

Discussion of the corrections required is found in Appendix C.

CITY OF BRIMBANK

2 KEY FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The following findings from new or revised heritage significance assessment and statutory

recommendations are based on the place and precinct citations found in the appendices.

2.1 Key findings

2.2.1 Places of individual significance

The following places have been found to be of individual heritage significance and should be

given individual protection under the Heritage Overlay. Some places already in a precinct

contribute to the precinct’s significance and can be included as part of it. Others fall outside

the period of significance of the surrounding precinct, or are unrelated thematically and should

be given their own HO number.



Hampshire House, 233-241 Hampshire Road, Sunshine, of 1924. Not in a precinct,

should have its own HO number.



Richards Dairy, 44 Hampshire Road, Sunshine, of 1936. In precinct HO25, its built date

fits within the period of significance, and it is related thematically, so should be Significant

to the precinct.



Headlie Taylor House/Sunshine Boys Hostel, 131 Durham Road, of 1938. Though within

precinct HO23, it was built after the defined period of significance, though its links to

Headlie Taylor give it a strong connection to the themes of the precinct. A demolition

permit is imminent to demolish this building.



Kirby House, 127 Durham Road, Sunshine. This house adjoins precinct HO23 and is

related to it in theme and built-date. It could either be added to the precinct (as Significant)

or be given its own HO number.



House, 114 Morris Street, Sunshine (HO114). The individual significance of this house

has been confirmed, and the place citation updated.

2.2 Statutory Recommendations

2.2.1 Individual HOs

The following places should be added to the HO Schedule of the Brimbank Planning Scheme

as individual places:



Hampshire House, 233-241 Hampshire Road, Sunshine, of 1924.



Headlie Taylor House/Sunshine Boys Hostel, 131 Durham Road, of 1938. (NB: Unless the

house is demolished, in which case it will lose its heritage significance.)



Kirby House, 127 Durham Road, Sunshine. (Alternatively, could be added to precinct

HO23 as a significant property.)

2.2.2 Part of existing precinct

As part of the review of Railway Estate Precinct, Sunshine (HO25), the period of significance

was redefined from ‘1890-1930s’ to ‘1890-1950s’. This, as well as the correction of many built

dates to the houses within the precinct has led to a recommendation for extensive regradings of

houses within in; primarily recognising largely intact houses of the 1940s and 1950s as

contributory to the significance of the precinct. This regrading is in comparison to the precinct

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

map used in the ‘Brimbank Heritage Design Guidelines: Part 7 – Railway Station Estate’ of

2009.

The following place should be reclassified from non-contributory to precinct HO25 to

significant to that precinct:



Richards’ Dairy, 44 Hampshire Road, Sunshine, of 1936.

The following place should be reclassified from non-contributory to precinct HO25 to

contributory to that precinct:



5 Benjamin Street



7 Benjamin Street



16 Benjamin Street



26 Benjamin Street



37 Benjamin Street



39 Benjamin Street



41 Benjamin Street



43 Benjamin Street



69 Benjamin Street



80 Benjamin Street



84 Benjamin Street



86 Benjamin Street



88 Benjamin Street



89 Benjamin Street



90 Benjamin Street



91 Benjamin Street



93 Benjamin Street



95 Benjamin Street



31 Hampshire Road



46 Hampshire Road



148 Morris Street



149 Morris Street



153 Morris Street



45 Stanford Street



49 Stanford Street

CITY OF BRIMBANK

The following places should be reclassified from contributory to precinct HO25 to non

contributory to that precinct. A reason for this recommendation is noted in brackets:



55 Benjamin Street (1950, very low intactness)



40 Hampshire Road (1970s, outside of significant period)

2.2.3 Corrections to HO Schedule and maps

The following corrections should be made for these places already on the Heritage Overlay:



Shops, 193-199 Hampshire Road, Sunshine (HO130). Correct the extent as shown on the

9HO map and in the HO Schedule to: ‘193-197 Hampshire Road, Sunshine’.



Massey Ferguson Complex, Sunshine (HO3). Correct the entry in the HO Schedule to

replace the word ‘No’ with dashes in the first four boxes (Paint Controls, Internal Controls,

Tree Controls, Outbuilding Controls) to reflect its listing on the Victorian Heritage

Register.



Shop & residence, 19-21 Sydney Street, Albion. This property is already protected as part

of the HO24 heritage precinct. The Heritage Overlay Schedule should be amended to allow

prohibited uses, with the following entered in to the ‘Prohibited Uses Permitted?’ column:

‘Yes – 19-21 Sydney Street, only’.

2.2.4 Revisions to reference document

The current place and precinct citations from the

(2007) should be replaced with the revised versions found in Appendix B in this

report, as follows:



Commonwealth Munitions Housing, Sunshine (HO19).



Concrete Housing Estate, Sunshine (HO20).



ICI Heritage Area, Deer Park (HO21).



Railway Estate Precinct, Sunshine (HO25).



Parsons House (HO114).



Sunshine Picture Theatre (HO127).



Church of Christ, Sunshine (HO125).

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

APPENDIX A – NEW CITATIONS

Hampshire House, 233-241 Hampshire Road, Sunshine

History

Architect: J Raymond Robinson

Date: 1923-24

H.V. McKay aimed to provide a range of facilities in order to attract staff and workers to the

sparsely populated Sunshine. McKay and his brothers owned a number of lots on what would

become the main commercial centre in Hampshire Road, between the railway station and the

Sunshine Harvester Factory. By 1910, this commercial area on Hampshire Road, just east of

Sunshine Estate, consisted of the Bank of New South Wales, a post office, hairdressers,

tobacconist, ironmongery and timber yard, butcher, grocery, draper’s, bootmaker’s and more

(Ford 2001:103).

The number of shops located in Sunshine Estate rose from 1909, with the growth of the

factory and number of houses in the estate. By 1925, there were at least 57 shops in Sunshine,

mostly located in Hampshire Road, plus an additional six corner shops (Ford 2001:103 &

293). While all the shops built in Sunshine’s first decade of development were single-storey and

simple in style, the 1920s saw more elaborate and substantial commercial and retail buildings

grouped in Hampshire Road, just south of Devonshire Road, and a handful in the second retail

hub in Sun Crescent. Many of the most striking examples were the work of local architect J.

Raymond Robinson.

The land where Hampshire House now stands was purchased by Samuel McKay, brother of

HV McKay and a manager at the Sunshine Harvester Factory, in December 1918, before being

transferred to HV McKay Pty Ltd in July 1928 (LV: Vol 3200 Fol 844). Prior to this second

CITY OF BRIMBANK

transfer, in April 1923, architect J Raymond Robinson placed a tender notice for: ‘Two-storey

Brick Shops and OFFICES, Hampshire Road, Sunshine, for H. V. McKay Pty. Ltd.’ (

, 7

April 1923:6). This built date is confirmed by the street directories, which note ‘4 shops being

built’ in this location in the 1925 directory (which would have been compiled in 1924)

(S&McD). A photo, held by Museum Victoria, dated August 1924 shows the building nearing

completion.

The 1926 street directory recorded businesses including a combined furniture store and

ironmongers (like a hardware store), a bootmaker, ladies’ draper (dressmaker) and a

confectioner’s. The building was already known as Hampshire House, as noted in a 1926

advertisement for Thomson & Co. Complete Home Furnishers (

, 27 March 1926:5).

The building was also home to a State Electricity Commission store, from 1928 through to

1945 at least (S&McD).

Ownership of the property transferred to Massey-Ferguson (Australia) Ltd, along with the

merger of HV McKay Pty Ltd in 1962, until it was sold to Hampshire House Pty Ltd in 1964,

and then to John Kontek, Real Estate Agent, and his wife in 1968. (LV: Vol 8615 Fol 307)

J. (John) Raymond Robinson was born in the Footscray area in 1891, the son of local

shopkeeper Alexander Robinson. The family moved that same year to Braybrook (as Sunshine

was then called) where Alexander opened a shop. J Raymond Robinson trained as an architect

and his first known commission was the Mechanics’ Institute Library (HO9), at 1 Corio Street,

built in 1912. Over the next fifteen years, he would design many of Sunshine’s houses, shops,

public buildings, offices and extensions to the Sunshine Harvester Factory.

Robinson was closely linked to the owners of the Harvester Factory, the McKay family. In

1923, Robinson married Nita McKay (niece of company founder, HV McKay), and they had

three children. He designed houses for McKay family members, such as George McKay’s house

of c1915 on the corner of Durham Road and Watt Street, the Arts & Crafts homestead

in Wagga Wagga, NSW, for Mavis McKay. He made alterations to

,

Sunbury, to adapt it for use as HV McKay’s retirement residence (McNeill, 1984:79).

Robinson also won the architectural competition for new offices of Sunshine Harvester

(completed 1926, VHR 1966, HO11 & HO18).

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

Apart from Hampshire House, he was also responsible for the design of central Sunshine’s

most distinguished shops, including 207-211 Hampshire Road (HO133) and 193-199

Hampshire Road (HO130). Other major works by Robinson in the area are the former

Braybrook Shire Municipal Offices of 1922, and the Sunshine Presbyterian Church of 1926-

28 (HO54, now the McKay Memorial Church). He also built a fine Arts & Crafts house for

his own family in 1923 at 33 Sun Crescent (HO67).

Many other houses, shops and public buildings in Sunshine have been attributed to Robinson,

which are some of the most interesting early 20

th

-century buildings in the locality, and

Brimbank Shire as a whole. Robinson’s houses, in particular, are distinguished by their heavy

timber verandah brackets and friezes, which can be seen as influenced by the Arts & Crafts

movement of the time, and highly inventive.

(Sunshine), as cited.

(Melbourne), as cited.

Ford, Olwen & Gary Vines (2000), ‘Brimbank City Council Post-contact Cultural Heritage

Study, Volume 1 Environmental History’, prepared for Brimbank City Council.

LV: Land Victoria certificates of title, as cited.

McNeill, Dorothy,

, 1984.

S&McD: Sands & MacDougall Street Directories, as cited.

Description

Hampshire House stands on the south-west corner of Hampshire and Devonshire Roads,

linking the Harvester Offices on Hampshire Road with the interwar shops stretching

southward along Hampshire Road. It is similar stylistically to the neighbouring Harvester

Offices exhibiting geometric Early Modern design, though is lower in overall height.

The building has identical elevations facing these two main streets, of equal length. At either

end of each elevation is a breakfront with a raised parapet. At the corner, the two breakfronts

meet, creating a tower-like element. The breakfronts have a concentration of geometric

ornament, executed in smooth render (as are the rest of the facades). Each breakfront has a

continuous ledge serving as a window sill, below which are simplified consoles, sitting between

shallow pilasters with serrated edges. Above this, each breakfront has a large window set

beneath a classical hood, resting on the same simplified consoles. To either side of the window

is a heavy pier with massive geometric forms applied near the top. The piers project above the

balustrade level, though the sections of parapet between them steps upward.

The three centre bays between the breakfronts, on each elevation, have single and paired

windows with heavy moulded sills. Above them is a simple parapet, with heavy mouldings to

the top and particularly at cornice level. Below the cornice moulding are flattened dentils

which alternate between short and long.

At the ground-floor level, the cantilevered verandah survives, but all of the shopfronts have

been replaced. At first-floor level, the one-over-one sash windows visible in the 1924 photo

have been replaced by single-pane windows.

Comparative analysis

Hampshire House can be compared to J Raymond Robinson’s other retail and commercial

buildings, as well as other such buildings of the interwar area in Sunshine of individual

significance.

- Sunshine Advocate Office, 11-15 Sun Crescent (HO51). These single-storey shops are a

modest and typical example of their era. All have brick piers defining the three parapets,

with a rendered area for signage between. The top of each pier is defined by a pyramidal

CITY OF BRIMBANK

rendered cap with a rendered line extending downward to rest on a small corbel. The

central shop has a triangular pediment, while those on the sides have flat pediments,

creating a unified whole. The designer is unknown.

In comparison, Hampshire House is a much more creative version of the interwar

commercial building form.

- Derrimut Hotel, 132 Durham Road (HO65). This hotel of 1929 was designed in the

Spanish Mission style by architect G Hamilton Sneddon of the practice Cedric Ballantyne

& Associates. It is highly intact.

Like Hampshire House, this is an attractive landmark corner building, which was

architect-designed and quite fashionable at the time. It demonstrates an entirely different

architectural style of the interwar era.

- Shops, 193-199 Hampshire Road (HO130). A group of three two-storey shops on a corner

site of 1924, attributed to J. Raymond Robinson. The intact upper floors show simplified

Edwardian Freestyle features, including arched parapets to the two centre shops, as well as

window hoods and sashes influenced by domestic bungalow detailing. It retains two of its

five metal-framed display windows and the entrance door to the corner shop.

In comparison, Hampshire House is a more monumental building on a more major corner

site, but is less intact having lost its first-floor sash windows as well as all shopfronts.

- Shops, 207-211 Hampshire Road (HO133). A group of three two-storey shops constructed

in the 1920s for owner H.V. McKay. The architect is believed to be J. Raymond

Robinson. Their style is an inventive Edwardian Freestyle with a Tudor influence seen in

the steeply pitched central gable. Much of the upper floor retains its unpainted render

finish. No shopfronts survive.

In comparison, Hampshire House exhibits an equally creative and more intricate detailing.

Its size and major corner site make it more of a landmark than these shops, but it is less

intact.

- H.V. McKay Offices, 2 Devonshire Road (VHR H1966). This very large two-storey

building has a curved corner to Harvester Road and is a major landmark, both for its

striking architectural form and its importance as the headquarters of the Harvester Factory.

It was built in 1926 to a design by J. Raymond Robinson.

Hampshire House exhibits a similar use of creative geometric detail to the Offices, but is

less intact. Together the two buildings create a very strong composition along Devonshire

Road.

In conclusion, Hampshire House is one of Sunshine’s landmark interwar commercial buildings

by virtue of its location, size and creative style.

Statement of significance

Hampshire House, 233-241 Hampshire Road, Sunshine, which stands on the corner of

Devonshire Road. It was constructed in 1924 for H.V. McKay, who was responsible for

developing a number of shops along Hampshire Road. The architect was J. Raymond

Robinson. Among other tenants, the building was home to a State Electricity Commission

store, from 1928 until the post-war period. Since 1964 it has been the headquarters of John

Kontek Real Estate Agents.

Hampshire House is of local architectural and historical significance to the City of Brimbank.

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

Architecturally, it is significant as a relatively intact work of prominent local architect, J

Raymond Robinson, demonstrating his use in the 1920s of a highly creative Early Modern

style also seen in his adjacent H.V. McKay Offices. (Criteria E & H)

Historically, it is significant for its associations with H.V. McKay, the inventor of the Sunshine

Harvester and one of Australia’s foremost industrialist. H.V. McKay was responsible for

singlehandedly reshaping the tiny Braybrook Junction, which he renamed ‘Sunshine’, by

creating residential estates for his workers and providing facilities such as parks and shops. His

company owned much of the retail strip along Hampshire Road and had many of the surviving

interwar shops built. (Criterion H)

Recommendations

Recommended for inclusion in the Heritage Overlay of the City of Brimbank Planning

Scheme. The recommended extent comprises Lot 2 of LP72287. No specific controls are

recommended for the HO Schedule.

CITY OF BRIMBANK

Richards’ Dairy, 44 Hampshire Road, Sunshine

History

Architect: J Raymond Robinson

Date: 1936

Dairying was a major activity in the Brimbank area, contributing to the livelihood of many

small farmers, from the 1850s onwards. The separating of cream from the milk and the making

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

of butter was the main technology of the early years, especially involving women. … A

creamery was opened at Keilor in the 1890s and farmers began supplying milk in bulk to the

creamery. In later years, milk was picked up by milk trucks and taken to depots further afield.

Cameron’s dairy in Sydney Street, Albion, operating in the 1920s-30s, still survives. Richards’

Dairy was a major dairy in Sunshine for many years. Other examples may still survive in the St.

Albans, Sydenham-Keilor area (Ford, 2000:32).

During the interwar period, ‘Model Suburban Dairies’ were introduced in the Melbourne

metropolitan area. They were custom-built to maintain modern hygiene and packaging

standards. It was also at this time that pasteurisation of milk became universal, and dairies

began to deliver milk in bottles, instead of ladled from a billy can (Vines, 1993:11).

Mr John Richards established his dairy in Sunshine in 1922 (‘Sunshine Illustrated’,

21/05/1960:6). In September 1936 he purchased two vacant blocks of land on the south-east

corner of Hampshire Road and Morris Street from Robert Bennett (MMBW Detail Plan No.

3955, 1943; LV: Vol 2434 Fol 706). By December of that year, he had engaged local architect,

J. Raymond Robinson, to design a large brick dairy and residence in the fashionable Moderne

style along with brick stables at the rear, in the south-east corner. The eastern wing of the

building, along Morris Street, was the residence, with a separate entrance. The wing facing

Hampshire Road contained the dairy proper, a milk-can wash, tipping floor and loading floor.

The stable was equipped with a cart wash, to ensure cleanliness when transporting the milk.

The drainage plan provides detailed specifications for grading of floors and channels to ensure

hygienic milk processing conditions (MMBW, 02/12/1936). The retail store was located in the

curved corner section.

In 1954 the Richards family opened the Sunshine Model Dairy at 85 Hampshire Road. It

contained the most modern in milk-processing plant, including pasteurising equipment for up

to 30 tons of milk. The bottled milk was then sold from Richards’ Dairy, managed by J

Richards Senior and Geoff Wallace. Presumably, the dairy and bottling wing at 44 Hampshire

Road was made redundant (Sunshine Advocate, 11/06/1954:1). In 1957, these were the only

two ‘dairies within a milk district from which milk may be sold or distributed’ in Sunshine

(VGG, 26/03/1957:1062).

John Richards (Senior) died on 14 June 1964, with probate of his will going to Hazel Howie,

married woman, and Ian MacKinnon (LV: Vol 6065 Fol 847). Mr R Howie, presumably

Hazel’s husband, was recorded as the general manager of Richards’ Dairies Pty Ltd in 1960

(‘Sunshine Illustrated’, 21/05/1960:6).

CITY OF BRIMBANK

Richards’ Dairy closed in 1974, and the dairying and stabling facilities were removed

(MMBW, 26/03/1974). The property was sold to Ronald Gibbings-Johns, motor mechanic,

and his wife in 1979 (LV: Vol 6065 Fol 847).

J. (John) Raymond Robinson was born in the Footscray area in 1891, the son of local

shopkeeper Alexander Robinson. The family moved that same year to Braybrook (as Sunshine

was then called) where Alexander opened a shop. J Raymond Robinson trained as an architect

and his first known commission was the Mechanics’ Institute Library (HO9), at 1 Corio Street,

built in 1912. Over the next fifteen years, he would design many of Sunshine’s houses, shops,

public buildings, offices and extensions to the Sunshine Harvester Factory.

Robinson was closely linked to the owners of the Harvester Factory, the McKay family. In

1923, Robinson married Nita McKay (niece of company founder, HV McKay), and they had

three children. He designed houses for McKay family members, such as George McKay’s house

of c1915 on the corner of Durham Road and Watt Street, the Arts & Crafts homestead

in Wagga Wagga, NSW, for Mavis McKay. He made alterations to

,

Sunbury, to adapt it for use as HV McKay’s retirement residence (McNeill, 1984:79).

Robinson also won the architectural competition for new offices of Sunshine Harvester

(completed 1926, VHR 1966, HO11 & HO18).

Apart from Hampshire House, he was also responsible for the design of central Sunshine’s

most distinguished shops, including 207-211 Hampshire Road (HO133) and 193-199

Hampshire Road (HO130). Other major works by Robinson in the area are the former

Braybrook Shire Municipal Offices of 1922, and the Sunshine Presbyterian Church of 1926-

28 (HO54, now the McKay Memorial Church). He also built a fine Arts & Crafts house for

his own family in 1923 at 33 Sun Crescent (HO67).

Many other houses, shops and public buildings in Sunshine have been attributed to Robinson,

which are some of the most interesting early 20

th

-century buildings in the locality, and

Brimbank Shire as a whole.

Ford, Olwen & Gary Vines, ‘Brimbank City Council Post-contact Cultural Heritage Study,

Volume 1 Environmental History’, 2000.

MMBW: Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works, Drainage Plans No. 200671. J.

Raymond Robinson is listed as the ‘agent’ on the 1936 plan (the agent was the architect or

builder).

MMBW Detail Plan No. 3955, 1934.

McNeill, Dorothy,

, 1984.

‘Sunshine Illustrated’, souvenir edition of the

, 21/05/1960.

, as cited.

VGG:

, as cited.

Vines, Gary,

1993..

Description

The former dairy is a large, L-shaped brick building with facades to both Hampshire Road and

Morris Street, and a central curved section addressing the corner. The building is set back from

the pavement behind narrow strips of lawn along the two sides, and a wide, curved concrete

path to the corner entrance. Brick stables have survived behind it, at the south-east corner of

the site.

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

The curved corner section served as the shopfront and has a small cantilevered verandah (also

curved) appropriate to this use. All ornament is concentrated on the semi-circular brick

parapet, with horizontal ‘speed lines’ executed in dog-tooth brick, recessed courses and

projecting course. As was typical of the style, the horizontal lines were balanced by a vertical

stepped pylon above the entry. The front door is modest in size and retains its ledged door with

strap hinges.

The former dairy wing, along Hampshire Road, has a tiled hipped roof with two small dormers

on the south slope. It sits on a plinth of brown glazed manganese bricks. Window forms to this

and the curved section of the building comprise simple casements and picture windows flanked

by windows with horizontal glazing bars.

The residence wing, along Morris Street, is the most ornate and also adopts the Old English

style, which was considered more appropriate for houses at the time. It has an identical tiled

hipped roof to the dairy wing, and retains a narrow chimney with a cream-brick shaft,

manganese brick top and large chimney pot. The window of this wing are similar to those of

the dairy – with a fixed picture window between two double-hung sashes – but have a

decorative arched glazing bar that runs through each bank of windows. The front porch is the

decorative focus of this wing. It is quite wide and has the flush verges and corbelled eaves

typical of the style. The brickwork of the porch is very complex, with sloping courses around

the entry and manganese brick accents including an Art Deco keystone, half-brick corbelling

below the eaves, and a Tudor-arched opening to the porch. The same manganese bricks are

also used for the plinth of this section of the building, as seen on the diary. The porch is

secured by mild-steel grilles (in a coat-of-arms pattern) and gates, which appear to be original.

The front door is elegant in proportion, with strong vertical panels and high-set floral

leadlights in a stepped configuration. There are matching sidelights.

The building is highly intact. The only external changes noted are the overpainting of the

textured cream brick, and the installation of roller shutters to the Hampshire Road side.

At the rear, the former stable is a red-brick building. The main section has a barrel-vaulted

(curved) roof clad in corrugated iron, and there is a ledged door giving access to the loft.

Appended to its west side is a smaller and lower section with a nearly flat roof. Since it was

constructed in 1936, the single-storey cart wash and manure bin have been removed from the

north face of the vaulted section. Two modern roller doors have been installed on the north

side of the stable building.

Comparative analysis

There are a number of former dairies protected on the Brimbank Heritage Overlay, as well as

many of J. Raymond Robinson’s designs, domestic, commercial, and community buildings.

This dairy is the latest identified of his works, and as such, differs significantly from his Arts &

Crafts houses of the 1910s and his Edwardian Freestyle and Early Modern commercial

buildings of the 1920s.

It is more appropriate to compare the dairy and residence to other Moderne buildings in the

City of Brimbank, a small number of which are protected on the Heritage Overlay:

- HO57 Sunshine Girls Technical School, 111 Derby Road, Sunshine. Designed by Public

Works Department architect Percy Everett and constructed in 1938, it has the same

materials palette (cream brick with manganese brick accents) and share stylistic features

including curved walls and flat window hoods. The school is intact externally.

- HO56 Sunshine Technical School, 129 Derby Road, Sunshine. Designed by Public Works

Department architect Percy Everett and constructed in 1941, this two-storey building is an

austere composition with a red brick plinth and rendered walls above. Ornament is limited

to horizontal lines incised in the render and a round stairwell at the east end of the façade.

CITY OF BRIMBANK

- HO127 Sunshine Picture Theatre, 128 Hampshire Road, Sunshine. Extensively remodelled

in 1938 by architect R Morton Taylor (who also designed the Astor Theatre in St Kilda), it

shares curved wall forms.

- HO84 Deer Park Primary School No. 1434, Ballarat Road, Deer Park. Designed by Public

Works Department architect Percy Everett and constructed in 1942, this is a small, red

brick building with clerestory windows above the flat roof. Ornament is limited to recessed

horizontal lines in the brickwork and horizontal glazing bars to the windows.

In comparison, the curved Moderne corner element of Richards’ Dairy is most closely

comparable to HO57 - Sunshine Girls Technical School, in its use of very up-to-date

architectural forms and materials, namely the parapeted, semi-circular bay with horizontal

banding, and the use of cream brick with manganese brick accents.

The Old English residential wing is a relatively rare example of this style in the City of

Brimbank, though it was very fashionable in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs in the 1930s. A

simplified version of the style survived into the early 1940s. The only other examples identified

on the Heritage Overlay are two identical houses on the ICI Residential Estate (HO21): 785

Ballarat Road and 3 Hume Street. Slightly later in date (1939-42), the two houses are very

simple in form, with decoration limited to a prominent apricot-brick slab chimney to the

façade, and a projecting bay to one side of the façade with a flush verge. It is this feature, as

well as the use of smooth render walls, that indicate the influence of the Old English style.

In comparison, the entrance porch at Richards’ Dairy is far more complex and accomplished,

with its fine ornamental brickwork.

The other dairies on the Brimbank Heritage Overlay are the following:



HO86, Opies Dairy, 2-4 Egan Street, Deer Park. This is a small, 19

th

-century

vernacular structure, used for processing milk and keeping it cool. Originally on a

farm, it is now surrounded by late-20

th

-century houses.



HO76, Cameron House and Dairy, 49 Sydney Street, Albion. A c1910 weatherboard

house, thought to retain a dairy at the rear.



HO116, 2 Tyler Street, Sunshine. A c1913 timber house with a brick structure behind

it which was used as a dairy in 1930s-40s. (NB: The brick structure is no longer visible

and may have been removed.)



HO124, Brimbank Farm, Brimbank Road, Keilor. A 19

th

-century timber homestead

with a bluestone dairy outbuilding.



HO1, Overnewton House, Overnewton Road, Keilor. This picturesque Scottish

baronial manor retains a number of stone and timber outbuildings of the 19

th

century,

including a dairy.

All of the dairies currently protected under the Heritage Overlay are of the small, vernacular

type, whether on a farm or providing a local supply for early suburbs. None of them represent

the new type of dairy seen in the interwar period: the ‘Model Suburban Dairies’ which were

constructed with the latest in hygiene and bottling facilities, as was Richards’ Dairy.

Statement of significance

The former Richards’ Dairy building and stables at 44 Hampshire Road, Sunshine. John

Richards started his dairying business in 1922 and in 1936 purchased this block of land for his

purpose-built dairy and residence. The building was designed in the fashionable Moderne style

by prominent local architect J. Raymond Robinson that same year.

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

The former Richards’ Dairy is of local historical and architectural significance to the City of

Brimbank.

Historically, Richards’ Dairy is significant as a now rare surviving example of a model suburban

dairy, built with the most modern in hygiene and bottling equipment as was typical of the

modern suburban dairies established during the interwar period when tighter controls were

placed on processing and distribution of milk. While the model suburban dairies superseded

the simple farm dairies, where milk was sold directly from billies, they themselves were made

obsolete with improved refrigerated transport, allowing today’s centralised processing plants.

Richards’ Dairy also illustrates the suburban shop-house typology which was typical up until

the post-war period when car ownership became more widespread. (Criteria A & B)

Architecturally, it is a good and intact representative example of a Moderne commercial

building, with features including the curved corner, use of cream brick with horizontal bands,

vertical pylon above the shop entry, as well as the cantilevered canopy. The residence is

indicated by a gabled entrance porch with fine decorative brickwork in the Old English style,

which was typical for dwellings in many Melbourne suburbs the 1930s, but rare in Brimbank.

It is also significant as one of the last-known designs by prominent local architect, J. Raymond

Robinson. Robinson’s oeuvre in Sunshine and Albion began with the Mechanics’ Institute

Library of 1912, and soon came to be the McKay family’s de facto architect, designing many of

their own homes as well as the Harvest Factory Offices of 1926. (Criteria D & H)

Recommendations

The former Richards’ Dairy is both of individual historical and architectural significance, as

well as contributing to an understanding of the interwar development of HO25 – Railway

Estate. It fits within the current period of significance for this precinct, which is 1890-1 to

1930s. Therefore, it is recommended that the grading of 44 Hampshire Road be changed from Non

contributory to HO25 to Significant to HO25.

CITY OF BRIMBANK

Former Headlie Taylor House and Sunshine Boys’ Hostel, 129-131

Durham Road, Sunshine

History

Architect: W.A.B. Blackett

Date: 1938

H.V. McKay, founder of the Sunshine Harvester Factory (later Massy Ferguson) initially

provided housing accommodation for senior employees because of the scarcity of

accommodation following the relocation of the factory from Ballarat to Braybrook Junction.

However, following an overseas trip in 1906 he was taken with the industrial village concept

and determined to reproduce it 'on a modest scale' in a feudal experiment on a self contained

basis.

Between 1907 and 1926 eight subdivisions were created, totalling nearly 700 allotments. It

appears that McKay arranged for the subdivision of some of his landholdings with the express

purposes of promoting the garden industrial suburb as part of his progressive ideas of town

planning. As well as releasing the land, McKay offered to macadamise roads, lay water mains

and extend electricity at his own expense, and he may have had a hand in some of the buildings

through finance and construction by the company.

The first subdivision of 1907 extended west from Anderson Street, just north of the train line

(now Albion). In 1910 HV McKay purchased the land bound by Durham, Derby, Anderson

and Hampshire roads (much of which is now the HO23 heritage precinct). After subdividing

the land, and creating Graham, Watt and Corio streets, McKay began selling off house blocks

to his employees, providing finance both for the purchase of land and then the construction of

a house.

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

The block at the corner of Durham Road and Watt Street (129 Durham Road) was first sold

by HV McKay to John Charles Moore, an accountant, on 9 October 1913 (LV: Vol 3447 Fol

364). It is likely that Moore had the first house built on the site. He died in 1919, and the

property was sold to Headlie Shipard Taylor, Manager, on 19 September 1919. Taylor resided

on Forrest Street at the time of purchase, and had moved with his family to Durham Road by

1920 (LV: Vol 3732 Fol 331; S&McD:1920). It was not until 1923 that the lot next door

(131 Durham Road) was first sold, to Gilbert Rowland Hill, a foreman (LV: Vol 3447 Fol

364). When Sunshine was hooked up to the sewer, Taylor had an indoor toilet installed (MMBW:

17/04/1934). After Gilbert Hill died in March 1934, Headlie Taylor purchased his property

(131 Durham Road) on 12 December 1934. By this time, Headlie Taylor’s occupation was

listed as ‘engineer’ (LV: Vol 4754 Fol 659).

Just a few years later, Headlie Taylor had the existing timber houses at 129 Durham Road

demolished and replaced it with the present cream-brick Moderne house on the corner.

Headlie’s son, John, who would later become an architect, remembers that Headlie developed

the concept for the house and then engaged architect William Blackett to develop detailed

plans. Blackett later taught John Taylor at the University of Melbourne and showed him

models of the house. The cream bricks were manufactured at Hoffman’s brickworks, with

custom-made bricks to suit the radius of the curved walls of the house (J Taylor, 2013). The

builder was Sharpley Pty Ltd, a construction company based in South Yarra (MMBW:

04/05/1938).

Family members remember the care with which the house was constructed, six concrete piers

were installed below the floor in the billiard room (on the west side of the ground floor) to

support the weight of the billiard table. The spacious house had a living room, sewing room,

billiard room, study (with a trap door to a cellar where Headlie kept his whiskey), billiard

room, dining room, kitchen, and four bedrooms over the ground and attic-storey levels. A time

capsule, containing documents and other mementoes, was sealed up in the wall beside the

billiard room fireplace (J Taylor, 2013).

Headlie was also closely involved in the landscaping of the site, and designed an unusual

reinforced-concrete fence with a pipe rail along the top around the house, which was reportedly

very expensive to construct. Soon after the new house was complete, Headlie demolished the

house at No. 131 and had a tennis court constructed in its place, and extended the reinforced

concrete fence down the Durham Road frontage (J Taylor, 2013).

In the early 1950s, the extensive garden held not only the tennis court, but carefully tended

lawns, a pergola, vegetable garden, aviary, chicken house, workshop and garage (JT Jones,

2013). Headlie Taylor died on 22 March 1957, though his widow, Ruby Maud Taylor, remained at

the house and land until April 1959 when the two blocks were sold to the Crown (LV: Vol

3732 Fol 331).

The following is an edited extract from the Australian Dictionary of Biography (Hallett):

Headlie Shipard Taylor (1883-1957), agricultural machinery designer, was born on 7 July

1883 at Bungowannah, New South Wales ... Headlie attended school at Henty, but left aged

14 to work on his parents' wheat and sheep farm at Emerald Hill.

Convinced that farm machinery could be improved, in 1910 Taylor lodged his first patent, an

improvement for stripper harvesters. Next year he set out to design a harvester which would

handle storm-damaged crops better than the stripper harvester. With family support, working

long shifts and teaching himself engineering, he produced his first machine for the 1911-12

CITY OF BRIMBANK

harvest. Disappointed with it, he constructed a successful second machine and patented his

design in October 1913. … In 1914 Taylor demonstrated a third machine at the Henty show.

Interested farmers offered capital to produce it, but he preferred that an existing Australian

manufacturer undertake its production.

At Taylor's invitation, the agricultural machinery manufacturer H. V. McKay saw the header

in action and was so impressed that he negotiated for the patent rights and engaged Taylor to

supervise production of the header at his works from 6 April 1916. Output grew rapidly: 6

machines in 1916, 143 in 1917, 325 in 1918. During 1920, when widespread storms flattened

crops, the factory worked day and night to produce 1024 machines equipped with special 'crop

lifters'. By the end of the decade, headers outsold stripper harvesters. The first commercial

harvester to combine the reciprocating knife with the Australian stripping-comb, Taylor's

header provided the harvesting capacity needed in the broadacre dry farms of the wheat belt.

He also produced a string of other innovations ... In World War II he designed three machines

to meet the pressing need for equipment to harvest flax.

The 'Sunshine' auto-header—the first self-propelled harvester to be manufactured in large

numbers—stood out as Taylor's second major achievement. … In 1929 Taylor set up a factory

in Canada to make auto-headers for the North American market. Production proceeded until

the merger of McKay and Massey Harris interests in 1930. …

On 26 March 1918 Headlie Taylor had married Ruby Maud Howard in the Baptist Church at

Goombarganah, New South Wales. In 1954 he retired from his position as superintendent of

agricultural machinery works at H. V. McKay Massey Harris Pty Ltd.

Widely respected in the Henty and Sunshine communities, he was a director of the Sunshine

Employees' Trust Ltd and a member of the council of the Sunshine Technical School. Survived

by his wife, three sons and two daughters, he died at Sunshine on 22 March 1957 and was

cremated. His estate was valued for probate at £54,649.

William Arthur Mordey Blackett (1873-1962) was a Melbourne-born and based architect best

known for his Arts & Crafts designs in the first decades of the 20

th

century, and then for his

eclectic design during the interwar era. He practiced with a cousin, as Blackett & Forster, from

1914 to about 1932. Houses of that era included those in the American Craftsman idiom and

Spanish Mission. His commercial buildings of the 1920s were generally in the restrained

Georgian Revival style, including his award-winning Francis House in Collins Street (1927).

During the early 1930s, Blackett practiced alone and devoted much of his energies to

membership and presidencies of the RVIA and RAIA, and as honorary architect to the 1934

Centenary Homes Exhibition. From 1936 to 1941 he worked with architecture practice

Stephenson & Turner on the Royal Melbourne Hospital complex. He retired during WWII

(Raworth, 2012:90-91)

In May 1959 the State-owned Sunshine Boys’ Hostel opened its doors at 129-131 Durham

Road. The hostel ‘parents’, Mr and Mrs LT Lewis, took charge of up to 15 boys between the

ages of 14 and 18, described as ‘not normally acceptable in the hostels conducted by the

voluntary organisation [often due to religious denomination], who have no interested parents

or other relatives, and who require more than the usual help and supervision, as regards

employment and leisure’ (CWD, 1959:16).

The Victorian Government’s juvenile hostel system was intended to be the final step for

children from children’s homes, family group homes and other institutions. They provided a

transitional home for teenagers when they left high school and went into their first jobs. They

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

paid what they could afford for their room and board, while any shortfall was subsidised by the

Children’s Welfare Department (CWD, 1959:10).

Another was created at the same time, for girls, in Nunawading. This and the Sunshine hostel,

among others, were created to relieve overcrowding at the Children’s Welfare Department

‘Turana’ Reception Centre in Royal Park (CWD, 1960:11).

Annual Report,

Despite ‘failing in other placements’, the 15 teenagers at the Sunshine Boys’ Hostel could be

reported at the end of 1960 to ‘have settled down remarkably well, both in the hostel and at

local employment’. This was both due to the many employment opportunities in industry near

by, as well as the warm welcome from the local community. The boys participated in local

sporting activities, and local clubs and organisations presented the hostel with presents such as

a television and tennis equipment during its first year (CWD, 1960:16).

In 1984, the attic storey of the house was enlarged, including the addition of a second jerkin

head gable at the north end of the east elevation, which necessitated the demolition of the

original corner entry and balcony above it (visible in the 1960 photo) (MMBW: 15/02/1984).

The Boys’ Hostel had closed by 1992, when it was sold to Westadd Inc. of Footscray, a drug

and alcohol counselling service, which used it for a women and children’s residential

counselling program (LV: Vol 10043 Fol 481). By 2013 it was owned by Western Health.

CWD: Children’s Welfare Department of Victoria,

, 1959.

CWD: Children’s Welfare Department of Victoria,

, 1960.

Hallett, M. L. 'Taylor, Headlie Shipard (1883–1957)', Australian Dictionary of Biography,

ANU, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/taylor-headlie-shipard-8758/text15347, accessed 5

August 2013.

CITY OF BRIMBANK

Jones, Janice Taylor (granddaughter of Headlie Shipard Taylor, born 1947), pers. comm.,

2013. LV: Land Victoria, certificates of land title, as cited.

MMBW: Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works, Drainage Plans No. 188122 (for 129

Durham Road).

Nathan, J, K Nathan & M Bajada,

, Sunshine & District

Historical Society, 2013.

Raworth, Bryce, ‘Blackett & Forster’ in Goad & Willis, eds.,

, 2012, pp 90-91.

S&McD: Sands & MacDougall Street Directory for 1920.

Taylor, John (son of Headlie Shiphard Taylor, born 1926), pers. comm., 2013.

Description

The former Headlie Taylor House and Sunshine Boys’ Hostel is an attic-storey house standing

on the corner of Watt Street. The property stands on a double block, with a tennis court

occupying the western half of the site. A low concrete fence with expressed posts surrounds the

property, along the entire Durham Road frontage and the northern half of the Watt Street

frontage. As shown in the 1960 photograph, it was originally topped with a metal handrail,

and has a decorative metal gate at the corner, both of which have been removed. It has also

been doubled in height by the additional of a picket fence on top.

The house has solid cream brick walls with accents in glazed brown manganese bricks (to the

plinth and half-bricks creating a band at lintel level), typical of the Moderne style. Another

Moderne accent is seen in the curved concrete hood above the ground-floor openings of the

north elevation and the curved corners to walls (particularly to the north-east corner).

The roof is tiled and has jerkin-head gables to all elevations with attic-storey windows. The

south wing of the house is single-storey. The northern-most room is part of the original extent

of the house, while the remainder is a later extension (post-1984).

As noted in the history, the attic storey was enlarged in 1984. Great care was taken at the time

to replicate the jerkin-head form of the gables, thought they were enlarged and new windows

inserted. Cream brick was used to match the original extent of the house, though the slight

colour difference makes the original extent of the house legible. The single-storey extension to

the south end of the house also continued the original low-pitched gabled roof form of this

section, as well as the glazed terracotta tiles.

When viewed in February 2013, the house had been empty for some time, with boarded up

and broken windows.

Comparative analysis

This 1930s house was built in the Moderne style, which was very popular in the second half of

the 1930s through the 1950s. There are only a few places of this style protected on Brimbank’s

Heritage Overlay, all of which are institutional buildings, as follows:

- HO57 Sunshine Girls Technical School, 111 Derby Road, Sunshine. Designed by Public

Works Department architect Percy Everett and constructed in 1938, it has the same

materials palette (cream brick with manganese brick accents) and share stylistic features

including curved walls and flat window hoods. The school is intact externally.

- HO56 Sunshine Technical School, 129 Derby Road, Sunshine. Designed by Public Works

Department architect Percy Everett and constructed in 1941, this two-storey building is an

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

austere composition with a red brick plinth and rendered walls above. Ornament is limited

to horizontal lines incised in the render and a round stairwell at the east end of the façade.

- HO127 Sunshine Picture Theatre, 128 Hampshire Road, Sunshine. Extensively remodelled

in 1938 by architect R Morton Taylor (who also designed the Astor Theatre in St Kilda), it

shares curved wall forms.

- HO84 Deer Park Primary School No. 1434, Ballarat Road, Deer Park. Designed by Public

Works Department architect Percy Everett and constructed in 1942, this is a small, red

brick building with clerestory windows above the flat roof. Ornament is limited to recessed

horizontal lines in the brickwork and horizontal glazing bars to the windows.

In comparison, the house is most similar to the Sunshine Girls Technical School, sharing

cladding materials, including manganese bricks as a plinth and decorative horizontal lines

contrasting with the cream brick walls. The School shows a more advanced form of the

Moderne style, with its roof hidden behind a parapet giving the impression of a flat roof. As

was typical in the 1930s, the house paired a traditional pitched roof with this advanced

architectural style. Even so, it was a very stylistically up-to-date house when it was constructed.

Along with its size, this gives an indication of Headlie Taylor’s status in Sunshine at the time.

The two technical school buildings are quite intact, while the Picture Theatre and Deer Park

Primary have had extensive alterations to openings on their facades. In comparison, the house

is even less intact to its 1938 appearance, due to the roof alterations, so does not meet the

threshold to be locally significant as a representative example of this style.

Statement of significance

The former Headlie Taylor House, later the Sunshine Boys’ Hostel, at 131 Durham Road,

Sunshine. Headlie Taylor moved his family from Forrest Street, Albion, after purchasing an

existing house in 1919. In 1938 he had the house demolished and constructed a large, attic

storey cream-brick Moderne house in its place. He then proceeded to demolish the house next

door to make way for tennis courts and extensive gardens.

The property was sold to the Crown in 1959, two years after Headlie Taylor’s death, and

became the Sunshine Boys’ Hostel. By the 1990s, it had become a drug and alcohol

rehabilitation centre for women with children.

The timber bungalow at the south-west corner of the site is not significant.

The former Headlie Taylor House and Sunshine Boys’ Hostel is of local historical significance

to the City of Brimbank.

Historically, it is significant for its close and long-term associations with Headlie Taylor, who

commissioned the construction of the house and tennis courts in 1938, and lived at this

address from 1921 until his death in 1957. Headlie Taylor is one of Sunshine’s most famous

former residents, as an agricultural machinery designer brought to the Harvester Factory in

1916 to supervise the production of his patented Header Harvester. The first commercial

harvester to combine the reciprocating knife with the Australian stripping-comb, Taylor's

header provided the harvesting capacity needed in the broadacre dry farms of the wheat belt.

He continued with a string of other innovations, including the Sunshine Auto-Header, the first

self-propelled harvester to be manufactured in large numbers. Headlie Taylor was also an

important member of the local community and served as a director of the Sunshine Employees'

Trust Ltd and a member of the council of the Sunshine Technical School. His home, when

built in 1938, was very up-to-date stylistically and large in scale, indicating his standing in

Sunshine at this time. (Criterion H)

CITY OF BRIMBANK

The property is also of historical significance as the former home of the Sunshine Boys’ Hostel

and other social-welfare services. It was one of a number of new facilities created in 1959 by the

Department of Children’s Welfare to relieve overcrowding in their Royal Park ‘reception

centre’. As a hostel, it housed teenaged boys who were transitioning out of institutions such as

orphanages, and into paid work. Groups of up to 15 boys were looked after by hostel ‘parents’

Mr and Mrs LT Lewis, who provided assistance and supervision. The local community took a

positive interest in the hostel, inviting the boys to take part in local sporting activities, and

presenting the hostel with gifts such as a television and tennis equipment. (Criterion A)

Recommendations

While Headlie Taylor was one of HV McKay’s most valuable and well-known employees at the

Sunshine Harvester Factory, from 1916 until he retired in 1954, and thus closely linked to the

significance of HO23 – HV McKay Durham Road Housing Estate, the period of significance

defined for the precinct is 1912-1925, which excludes the house because of its 1938 date. For

this reason, it should have an individual heritage overlay on the entire site, including the tennis

courts.

Recommended for inclusion in the Heritage Overlay of the City of Brimbank Planning

Scheme. The recommended extent comprises the entire Allotment 18B, Parish of Cut-Paw

Paw. No specific controls are recommended for the HO Schedule.

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

Shop and residence, 19-21 Sydney Street, Albion

History

Hugh Victor McKay was the owner of the Sunshine Harvester Works, which he established at

an existing factory at 1 Devonshire Road, in 1904. McKay developed a house-buying scheme

which was financed and directed by the Sunshine Harvester firm. The development originally

provided housing accommodation for senior employees and employees relocating from the

Ballarat works (which operated concurrently) to the Braybrook Junction works. Previously,

employees would commute, rent a house or merely pitch a tent near the factory (Ford

2001:79).

McKay began to purchase land west of his works, and by 1907, owned 276 acres located on

Crown Allotments A, B, C and a portion of D, Section 9, Parish of Maribyrnong (Title

V3460/F873; Ford 2001:82-3). This land was bound by Ballarat Road at the north and the

railway to the east. The rate books later note that this development is called ‘Sunshine Estate’

(Vines 2000).

The first land sale of Sunshine Estate began in March 1907, when 76 allotments were put up

for sale (Ford 2001:82). This stage of development was located in the area immediately west of

the railway and included Forrest Street, Anderson Road, Ridley Street and King Edward

Avenue. The five acres, bound by Burnewang, Sydney, Drummartin and Adelaide streets, were

re-subdivided in 1914. A number of allotments in this area were sold by 1916, including

numbers 22, 23, 24, 25 and 26 Sydney Street (Vines 2000, Hermes record 45841; Ford

2001:99).

McKay developed his land in a methodical manner, only opening new sections for

development when the previous was populated. Between 1907 and 1926 he purchased eight

large lots of land and through subdivision, created almost 700 generous-sized blocks. McKay

built and owned some houses which he offered for rental, although on the most part,

purchasers built their own houses. Employees of the Sunshine Harvester Works continued to

populate the estate, however, employees of the factory were not the only people to move into

the estate (Vines 2000, Hermes record 45841; Ford 2001:100 & 205).

CITY OF BRIMBANK

H.V. McKay aimed to provide a range of facilities in order to attract staff and workers to the

sparsely populated Sunshine. McKay and his brothers owned a number of lots on what would

become the main commercial centre on Hampshire Road, between the railway station and the

Sunshine Harvester Factory. By 1910, this commercial area on Hampshire Road, just east of

Sunshine Estate, consisted of the Bank of New South Wales, a post office, hairdressers,

tobacconist, ironmongery and timber yard, butcher, grocery, draper’s, bootmakers and more

(Ford 2001:103).

The number of shops located in Sunshine Estate rose from 1909, with the growth of the works

and number of houses in the estate. By 1925, there were at least 57 shops in Sunshine, mostly

located in Hampshire Road, plus an additional six corner shops (Ford 2001:103 & 293).

In 1936, Sunshine was a town with a population of 5,000 and 75 shops. Of these shops, 13

were corner stores (such as 19-21 Sydney Street) or small groups of shops, located in Albion,

Sunshine’s only suburb. In the 1950s and 60s there was an increase in the number of corner

shops, which were now often referred to as ‘milk bars’ (Ford & Vines et al. 2000:51-2).

The house and shop at 19-21 Sydney Street are located on the south-west corner of Sydney

and Drummartin streets. As noted in the contextual history, HV McKay subdivided the land

bound by Burnewang, Sydney, Drummartin and Adelaide streets in 1914, and then began to

sell off subdivided blocks.

The Sands & McDougal (S&McD) directories have no listings for the west side of Sydney

Street (between Drummartin and Burnewang streets) from 1916 and 1919. In September

1919, the block that is now 19-21 Sydney Street, Albion, was sold to Verdon Arnold Hocking,

a clerk of Corio Street, Sunshine(LV: Vol 3460 Fol 873). The 1920 rate books indicate that at

this date there were no buildings on the land (RB).

Hocking sold the lot to Harold L Mills, a dairyman of Sydney Street, in June 1921. In June

1922, the land was sold to Albert E Pitcher, also a dairyman of Sydney Street (LV: Vol 4266

Fol 096). The 1923/24 rate book notes that a house had been built on the lot, and an increase

in the Net Annual Value (NAV - about 10 percent of total value) from 3 pounds in 1920/21 to

35 pounds. The NAV further increased to 52 pounds in the 1925/26 rate book (RB), which

may account for the various timber and brick sheds at the rear (possibly used for milk

processing) seen in the 1934 MMBW Detail Plan, and in a c1925 aerial view of ‘H.V.

McKay’s Subdivision’ (Ford, 2001:287). Pitcher is listed in the street directories in 1923 and

1924 as having a dairy on this part of Sydney Street, which suggest that the business was

initially housed in the outbuildings.

Pitcher sold the property to Francis Whitehall, butcher, in April 1926, and the 1927/28 rate

book records both a house and shop (with an increase in NAV to 80 pounds). In 1928, the

street directory indicates that Whitehall was a grocer.

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

From 1931, P S M Boswell ran the grocery store at 19 Sydney Street (S&McD). Leeroy Wall,

grocer, purchased the shop and house in October 1934, and ran the business until at least 1945

(S&McD; LV: Vol 4266 Fol 096). In March 1950, Wall sold the property to another grocer,

Robert L Pryce, also of 19 Sydney Street. In 1950 L H Worsley occupied the grocery store

(S&McD). In February 1951 Richard J Carr, storekeeper, of 19 Sydney Street, became the

owner. This quick succession of owners continued, as the property was purchased by John W

Snaith, storekeeper from St Albans, and his wife Sarah in July 1953 (LV: Vol 4266 Fol 096).

John E G Clark, bootmaker, and his wife Veronica became the owners in April 1954, and ran

J&V Clark grocery from 1955 to 1974 (S&McD). Following John’s death in 1973, Veronica

sold to Johan Panagiotidis, carpenter, and his wife Keti, in April 1974 (LV: Vol 8030 Fol 918).

It operated as a corner store until at least 2009.

Sources

Braybrook Shire rate books (RB), accessed at PROV, VPRS 1696/P0 Unit 29, 1920/1; Unit

31, 1923/4; Unit 35, 1925/6; Unit 38, 1927/8.

Ford, Olwen & Gary Vines (2000), ‘Brimbank City Council Post-contact Cultural Heritage

Study, Volume 1 Environmental History’, prepared for Brimbank City Council.

Ford, Olwen (2001),

, Sunshine.

Hermes place records, as cited.

LV: Land Victoria Certificates of Title, as cited.

Sands & McDougal Street Directories (S&McD), as cited.

CITY OF BRIMBANK

Vines, Gary (2000), ‘Brimbank City Council Post-contact Cultural Heritage Study’, HO24 -

‘McKay Housing Estate – King Edward Avenue’.

Description

The shop and house at 19-21 Sydney Street stand on the corner of Sydney and Drummartin

streets. The brick shop stands directly on the corner, with zero setback to the two sides. The

timber house adjoins it on the south side, with a party wall, but is set behind a modest front

lawn. None of the associated outbuildings survive.

The single-storey shop has a high parapet around the front section, typical of the 1920s. Red

brick parapets facing both street fronts sit between brick piers with a soldier course at the top.

The parapets have a simple, decorative step and a flat, rendered area in the middle for signage.

The building has two shopfronts. The main one, facing Sydney Street, appears to have been

remodelled in the 1950s – with a recessed central door and chrome-plated framing to the

windows. It appears that the entrance was moved from a chamfered corner – as shown in the

1934 MMBW plan – at this time. The cantilevered verandah may also have been added during

these works (as it is not indicated on the 1934 plan), but it was typical for interwar shops as

well.

The second shopfront is smaller, and faces Drummartin Street. It retains the bronze-framed

windows of the 1920s with narrow highlights.

The shop was extended to the rear in the late 20

th

century, beyond the extent of the verandah,

which is apparent both from a change in brickwork and in comparison with its footprint in

1934. The metal-framed windows of the shopfront appear to date from the 1950s, while the

pink and black tiles were reportedly installed in the 1970s. The brick has been overpainted.

The timber house is quite simple in form. It has a transverse gable roof, which extends over the

front verandah. The façade is symmetrical with a recessed doorway, and a double window on

either side.

The house is of low to moderate intactness, retaining the inset front door and a high-waisted

glazed door, its weatherboard cladding (beneath metal cladding), and transverse roof form.

Photos held by the current owners document the replacement of the original brick piers (in the

California Bungalow style) with the present metal pipes supporting the front verandah. Other

changes apparent include replacement of the front windows with aluminium units, and the

extension of the rear roof, creating a shallower pitch.

Comparative analysis

The shop and house at 19-21 Sydney Street can be compared both with other shop-house pairs

in the area. A similar typology is also seen in central Sunshine, along Hampshire Road, where

two-storey shops often had a residence upstairs. Both types were popular until the post-war era

when growing automobile ownership allowed shop owners to commute from home to work.

Shop-house pairs identified include:



56 King Edward Avenue, Albion (Contributory to HO24). A 1920s timber house

with a (rendered) brick shop built onto the corner. The house is intact, but the

shopfronts have been removed and bricked over.



54 King Edward Avenue, Albion (Contributory to HO24). A California Bungalow set

well back from the road with a small interwar shop standing at the front of the block.

Unusually, the shop is freestanding and is not at a corner site. Both are fairly intact.



133 Anderson Road, Albion (not in HO). An Edwardian timber house, front

verandah removed. A corner shop was built in front of part of the façade c1910s. It has

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

(rendered) brick walls, a pyramidal roof, entrance to chamfered corner, and may retain

early shop windows.



77-79 Hampshire Road, Sunshine (not in HO). A double-fronted weatherboard house

of c1920s with its façade entirely covered by a pair of brick interwar shops with

stepped parapets. The shopfronts have been replaced.

Among the above examples, the shop-house pair at 54 King Edward Avenue is the most intact,

but it is also the least typical, as most such pairs are on corner sites. In all but this case, it

appears that the house was built first, followed by a corner shop appended to it a few years

later. In comparison with these examples, the shop at 19-21 Sydney Street has a good level of

intactness, but the house is relatively low.

Statement of significance

The house and shop at 19-21 Sydney Street, Albion, are contributory to the HO24 heritage

precinct.

Recommendations

Amend the Heritage Overlay Schedule for precinct HO24 to allow Prohibited Uses for this

property only, to allow the shop to continue its traditional commercial/retail use. As this is a

single property, this might also be extended to the attached house.

CITY OF BRIMBANK

APPENDIX B – REVISED CITATIONS

The following citations were original produced as part of the

, 2007. New information added and corrections made are shown underlined. Deletions

are not shown here, but the revised citations can be compared with the originals in the 2007

report.

Presbyterian Manse / Kirby House, 127 Durham Road, Sunshine

Statement of Significance

The former Presbyterian Manse and Kirby House at 127 Durham Road, Sunshine, is

significant. The house was designed by architect J. Raymond Robinson in 1914 for owner

George McKay. It was depicted, along with other Robinson houses in Sunshine, in the 1916

edition of

The house is of local historical and architectural significance to the City of Brimbank.

It is of historical and architectural significance as an example of the work of local architect, J.

Raymond Robinson, within the company housing scheme developed by the Sunshine

Harvester Works. Robinson was the de-facto company architect of the Sunshine Harvester

Factory, designing the company offices as well as a number of houses and shops for the McKay

family. The combination of Federation massing and forms with unique timber verandah

fretwork seen here is typical of Robinson’s work of this period. (Criteria H & D)

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

It is also of historical significance for its association with several prominent Sunshine resident s

including the McKay family, it having originally been owned by George McKay and rented by

the Presbyterian Church as their manse for some years, and as the residence of George Kirby,

the entrepreneurial manager of the Sunshine Picture Theatre and, later, the Village Cinemas

network. (Criterion H)

Description

A weatherboard and stucco verandahed Federation Bungalow with an Indian character

expressed in the hipped roof and timber verandah detailing. A gabled half-timbered room bay

facing north has coloured glass in the upper casement lights and there are also faceted window

bays formed under the wide verandah set at a diagonal. Set on a corner site (Watt Street and

Durham Road) the house borders a carpark on its east side. Miles Lewis has described the

house as 'squarely in the Edwardian manner, with a diagonal emphasis created by taking a

verandah across most of the front and back along one side, closing it at either end with a room

thrust forward under a gable'. The house cost £575 and included front room, drawing room,

dining room, hall, passage, bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen, pantry, scullery, and back verandah.

Like many Federation houses, it has a massive roof and a tall tapering chimney finished in

roughcast render with a corbelled red-brick cap.

Alteration to the house since it was built include the following: Removal of the tall front

chimney, replacement of the slate roof with terracotta ridgecapping with corrugated iron, a

skillion addition to the south end of the Watt Street elevation, installation of a concrete slab

floor to the verandah, and the installation of roller shutters to most windows. While the house

is of overall high intactness, its setting has been compromised since the 2007 heritage study was

prepared. In particular the mature plantings – silky oak, peppercorn tree, two loquats,

pomegranate, one aloe, a fig and a walnut – and a curved concrete pathway (with rolled edge)

from the gate to the verandah have all been removed. The c.1940s kit garage with asbestos

cement sheet parapet and corrugated 'super six' wall cladding is also gone from the rear yard.

History

Architect: J. Raymond Robinson

Date: 1914

No. 127 Durham Road, at the corner of Watt Street, is on lot 49, Lodged Plan 5661, and was

originally owned by George McKay, but leased to the Presbyterian minister as a manse. Built

c.1914, the house was designed by J. Raymond Robinson and is illustrated in the Real Property

Annual, 1916. George McKay owned the next-door allotment and house (Lot 50) and leased it

to the principal of the Sunshine Technical College, George Baxter, but this house has now

been demolished. The Rev. George S. Brodie, minister of the Presbyterian church at Sunshine,

was the first occupant. He was succeeded by the Rev. Frank Tamagno. At some point in the

1920s the Presbyterian Church bought a property in Ridley Street, No. 14. This became 'The

Manse' and No. 127 Durham Road became an ordinary private dwelling. By 1930, No. 127

Durham Road was occupied by Mrs. Margaret Barrie, a relative (sister?) of C.E. Barrie, partner

in the firm of Schutt & Barrie Pty Ltd. Chaff Mill of Footscray. Shortly after this, the house

was occupied by George Kirby, who in the 1930s bought and refurbished the Sunshine Picture

Theatre. He operated it as a successful suburban cinema during the 'golden years' of cinema in

the 1930s and '40s and later went on to establish the successful Village Cinemas enterprise.

CITY OF BRIMBANK

Real Property Annual,

J. (John) Raymond Robinson was born in the Footscray area in 1891, the son of local

shopkeeper Alexander Robinson. The family moved that same year to Braybrook (as Sunshine

was then called) where Alexander opened a shop. J Raymond Robinson trained as an architect

and his first known commission was the Mechanics’ Institute Library (HO9), at 1 Corio Street,

built in 1912. Over the next fifteen years, he would design many of Sunshine’s houses, shops,

public buildings, offices and extensions to the Sunshine Harvester Factory.

Robinson was closely linked to the owners of the Harvester Factory, the McKay family. In

1923, Robinson married Nita McKay (niece of company founder, HV McKay), and they had

three children. He designed houses for McKay family members, such as George McKay’s house

of c1915 on the corner of Durham Road and Watt Street, the Arts & Crafts homestead

in Wagga Wagga, NSW, for Mavis McKay. He made alterations to

,

Sunbury, to adapt it for use as HV McKay’s retirement residence (McNeill, 1984:79).

Robinson also won the architectural competition for new offices of Sunshine Harvester

(completed 1926, VHR 1966, HO11 & HO18).

Apart from Hampshire House, he was also responsible for the design of central Sunshine’s

most distinguished shops, including 207-211 Hampshire Road (HO133) and 193-199

Hampshire Road (HO130). Other major works by Robinson in the area are the former

Braybrook Shire Municipal Offices of 1922, and the Sunshine Presbyterian Church of 1926-

28 (HO54, now the McKay Memorial Church). He also built a fine Arts & Crafts house for

his own family in 1923 at 33 Sun Crescent (HO67).

Many other houses, shops and public buildings in Sunshine have been attributed to Robinson,

which are some of the most interesting early 20

th

-century buildings in the locality, and

Brimbank Shire as a whole. Robinson’s houses, in particular, are distinguished by their heavy

timber verandah brackets and friezes, which can be seen as influenced by the Arts & Crafts

movement of the time, and highly inventive.

Condition/Integrity

In good condition, although some alterations have occurred at the rear, and roller shutters have

been installed on the main windows (intrusive but reversible).

Context/Comparative analysis

One of the few remaining, relatively-intact, larger McKay management houses, located in a

precinct once typified by similar places.

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

References

Shire of Braybrook ratebooks. Lodged Plan No 5661.

Miles Lewis, The Sunshine Harvester Works, Melbourne, 1987.

Real Property Annual, 1916, pp. 41, 87.

Prue McGoldrick, When the Whistle Blew, 1989, pp. 119, 139, 143, 197, 203.

McNeill, Dorothy,

, 1984.

MMBW Property Service Plan, City West Water.

Recommendations

Recommended for inclusion in the Heritage Overlay of the City of Brimbank Planning

Scheme.

CITY OF BRIMBANK

Parsons House, 114 Morris Street, Sunshine (HO114)

Statement of Significance

Of local historical and architectural significance as a relatively well-preserved and rare example

of nineteenth century housing which is particularly unusual in Sunshine. It is one of the very

few houses in the City of Brimbank to survive from the days of Melbourne's late nineteenth

century suburban housing boom and subsequent Depression. It is also the only remaining

building in Sunshine associated with the early days of the notable Parsons family, especially

Edmund Parsons, co-founder of the firm Parsons & Lewis - Horsehair Drawers and Curlers, a

unique and important industry which became significant in a national context.

History

Date: 1890s

Morris Street was one of the first streets to have houses constructed, on the new Braybrook

Railway Station Estate, c. 1890. It was the street nearest to the railway station. The name

'Morris' derives from the surname of one of the directors of the Wright & Edwards company

which opened its railway carriage and engineering works on a five acre site on the new estate,

near the railway line. By 1891 there were eighteen houses in Morris Street. One of these, on

allotment G 13, Section 11, Parish of Cut Paw Paw, was occupied by John Rankine, engineer.

He was probably on the staff of the Wright and Edwards factory, which employed a large work

force in its brief moment of glory, before its collapse. By 1892, the occupier was Edmund

Parsons, listed in the ratebooks as 'manufacturer'. The firm of Parsons & Lewis, curled hair

manufacturers, or drawers and curlers, was part of an unusual, even rare industry. It used an

animal by-product and treated or processed it for specific purposes, including the brushware'

industry and the transport industry, which used it extensively in upholstery. Edmund Parsons

and Richard Lewis had set up their firm in Melbourne in 1887, based at Victoria Street,

Carlton. (Peter Parsons, The Drawers and Curler: Parsons & Lewis 1887-1988, Melbourne,

1988) Edmund Parsons and his wife Emily had eight children, four of whom survived infancy.

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

Emily, nee Dean, died in 1905. The family remained at this address until about 1907, when

they moved further down Morris Street, but Edmund Parsons still retained ownership of the

house on allotment G l3. In 1911 he had a house built next to his factory, which had moved to

Anderson Road, Braybrook Junction in 1901, near the Kororoit Creek. Edmund's son, Joseph,

worked in the business and carried it on after his father died in 1916. Shortly afterwards, the

house at Lot G 13 was sold. The firm that Edmund Parsons established continued for over a

hundred years and became one of the only businesses to do this kind of work, in the whole of

Australia. In both world wars, it was classed as a reserved industry. When the Australian

Parliament first met in Canberra, Parsons & Lewis supplied the curled hair for the upholstery

work on the seating in both Upper and Lower Houses. Edmond's grandsons, Bob and Cyril,

carried on the enterprise and built up a significant overseas trade. The factory and adjoining

residence were demolished in 1976. Three generations of the Parsons' family worked at the

factory and also played a part in the life of the local community.

Description

Timber, detached, double-fronted cottage with ashlar boards and a verandah to the front. The

house follows the typical floor plan of late nineteenth century double-fronted cottage, with

central front door and hallway. The front door retains a highlight and is flanked by single

double-hung sash windows in architraves. The roof is an M-hip, typical of the Victorian

period, and is clad in modern corrugated steel. The house retains one rendered chimney, with

decorative mouldings, on the east slope of the roof. A symmetrical cottage such as this would

have original had two chimneys. Apart from the chimney moulding, ornament is limited to a

simple cornice (paired brackets, cricket-bat moulds), and verandah ornament.

The house has undergone a number of changes, some of them recent (since the 2007 heritage

study was prepared). The front door was replaced with a high-waisted model (c1920s), and the

western chimney was demolished. The verandah posts (or columns) were replaced with plain

timber posts in the 20

th

century, and these posts were recently replaced with turned timber

posts (NB: such posts are not appropriate for a 19

th

-century house, and are also undersized). At

this same time, the original gently convex roof of the verandah was replaced with a standard

reproduction bullnose profile. The current cast-iron lace appears to be a reproduction, but an

original cast-iron boss remains where it adjoins the wall.

The front picket fence is sympathetic, but not accurate in its details.

Condition/Integrity

The house is in good condition, and survives relatively intact, apart from the adaptation to

modern needs with the addition of kitchen and bathroom at the rear.

Context/Comparative analysis

114 Morris Street is one of a small group of nineteenth century houses surviving from the

former Railway Station Estate. This group is unique in Sunshine and the City of Brimbank

where early housing stock is generally of early twentieth century, larger detached timber homes

on larger blocks.

The precinct citation for HO25 notes that only eleven houses survive in Sunshine. Of them,

eight are within the precinct and three just beyond. Those in the precinct (some with

individual HOs, recognising their rarity and significance) are:



HO134-HO138 – 25, 29-35 Benjamin Street, Victorian row houses. These single-fronted

brick houses are unique in type in the municipality. They are of varying degrees of

intactness, with No. 31 have the lowest (though it has undergone some restoration

recently), while Nos. 29, 33 and 35 are of medium-high intactness.



HO25 (contributory) – 179 Morris Street, single-fronted timber house. This house

retains its original front window and door, and small-scale ashlar boards, as well as its

convex verandah roof. It has lost its chimney(s), verandah posts/columns and verandah

frieze.



HO25 (contributory) – 51 Stanford Street, a double-fronted timber house. Of relatively

low intactness.

In comparison, 114 Morris is of comparable intactness to 179 Morris Street, but it is the most

intact double-fronted 19

th

-century house in the precinct (and Sunshine). It is also far more

intact than two 19

th

-century double-fronted timber houses at 46 Chapman Street and 81

Couch Street, just outside the precinct.

As such, while the recent replacement of the original verandah roof is unfortunate, 114 Morris

Street does give a reasonable illustration of the typical development in this area in the 1890s.

Its significance is strengthened by its historical associations.

References

Peter Parsons, The Drawers and Curlers: Parsons & Lewis 1887-1988, Melbourne, 1988.

Edith Popp, Glimpses of Early Sunshine, 1979, pp. 74-76. Shire of Braybrook ratebooks,

1890-1911.

Recommendations

Recommended for retention in the Heritage Overlay of the City of Brimbank Planning

Scheme as an individual place. Also recommended for retention within the Railway Station

Estate - Wright & Edwards Heritage Area.

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

Former Church of Christ, 81-83 Hampshire Road, Sunshine (HO125)

Statement of Significance

Architecturally, a well-preserved example of its type and period and style for the area, as well as

having the distinction of being a church where the main section (of timber) was 'built in a day'

by local Church of Christ members. Historically, significant to the Sunshine area as a reflection

of the growth of Sunshine in the 1930s and of the range of religious denominations in the

population during the inter-war years.

CITY OF BRIMBANK

Description

This clinker brick church compares favourably with the Methodist Church further north, with

its medieval styling and brickwork but predates the other church by over 30 years. The

composition, with two Saxon towers either side of a gabled nave, is unusual while the tripartite

window group in the front is traditionally-based. The fence is also original. Another unusual

aspect of the design is the weatherboard sides, filling in between the brick ends. The erection of

the timber section of the church in one day is one of the distinctive aspects of Churches of

Christ, with only a small number of churches built in this manner documented. At the rear is a

small gabled timber building which was built as a ‘Kinder Room’.. It has identical tripartite,

Tudor windows as the sides of the church.

History

Architect:

Date: 1936

A Church of Christ congregation was established in Sunshine between the World Wars. In

1936, in the slow recovery from the Great Depression, they built their church on Hampshire

Road. Labour to build the timber section was provided by volunteers. The combination of

timber with a brick facade may reflect the frugal times in which it was built.

The church and kinder buildings were designed by engineer Thomas Rowland Morris, of 31

Flinders Lane, Melbourne. Plans were first lodged with the Department of Health in

September 1936, and in May 1937 both buildings and the ‘dwarf brick wall’ at the front were

reported as completed.

A large Youth Hall was built of brick at the rear of the site in 1954, and a link built between it

and the Kinder Room in 1967. A crying room was added to the south side of the church

building in 1980, concealed from the street behind the south tower.

Condition/Integrity

Generally an original exterior. The link between the Kinder Room and later Youth Hall is of

poor quality and design.

Context/Comparative analysis

Located near the former Masonic Hall and opposite the former Sunshine Picture Theatre in

what was once a civic/social precinct t of central Sunshine.

References

C.G. Carlton (ed.), Sunshine Cavalcade, 1951, p.29.

Prue McGoldrick, When the Whistle Blew, 1989, pp. 130-131.

Public Building File, PROV VPRS 7882/P1, Unit 977, File 8369.

Recommendations

Recommended for inclusion in the Heritage Overlay of the City of Brimbank Planning

Scheme.

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

Sunshine Picture Theatre, 126-128 Hampshire Road, Sunshine,

(HO127)

Statement of Significance

The former Sunshine Picture Theatre is of historical, architectural and social significance to the

City of Brimbank as a relatively well-preserved pre-World War Two cinema which represents

the expansion of the cinema to suburban centres around Melbourne and the 'Golden Years' of

cinema- going and popular entertainment in Australia. The cinema was the focus of both

common and sophisticated entertainment and recreation in Sunshine from the 1930s to the

1970s. It is the only near –original cinema exterior in the City of Brimbank. It is also a major

building in what was the social and civic centre of Sunshine in the inter-war period.

Architecturally, it compares with the Moderne styling seen in a more articulated manner at

Sunshine Technical School but there are few other buildings of comparable size and style in the

municipality. It is also significant as one of architect R. Morton Taylor’s cinema designs.

Taylor designed and remodelled dozens of theatres and cinemas throughout the 1920s and

‘30s, both in private practice and as a partner with Bohringer, Taylor & Johnson. His best

known work is the Astor Theatre, St Kilda.

Description

This is a Moderne style, one and two-storey, former theatre, sited opposite the Masonic Hall in

the former civic and social centre of Sunshine. The street facade has a streamlined tiered

treatment with curved corners and projecting fins, all executed in moulded cement. The

projection booth, set back in the upper level, sits forward of the auditorium and so is expressed

externally. Originally, banding in black tiles at the plinth and a string course at the top of the

entrance created a strong horizontal effect (since overpainted). This was accentuated by the

curve-edged cantilevered verandah over the set-back entrance. The multiple sets of glass doors

sat at the top of a small flight of three steps. Internally, the building was decorated with

Moderne style geometric patterns executed in plaster, with timber panelling in the foyer. Much

of this has been removed in the conversion to first a furniture shop, and then to offices.

However, the ceiling panels and proscenium arch remain intact.

History

Architect:

Date: 1925, altered 1937-38

Cinema came to Sunshine in 1918 when the Johnstone Brothers of Lyric Pictures set up

weekly shows in the Mechanics Institute. Later N.J. Vernon showed pictures at the Sunshine

Town Hall for a brief period before C.H. Meddesdorffer took over late in 1925.

In the 1920s, Melbourne accountant Jack O'Brien formed Sunshine Pictures Pty. Ltd and

purchased a grain store in Hampshire Road, opening it as a cinema on 21 March 1925, with

The Hummingbird, starring Gloria Swanson. The then-silent movies were accompanied by a

theatre pianist. A refreshment room and shop were added the following year, under architect

CITY OF BRIMBANK

V.G. Cook (PROV). The competition from the cinema brought an end to pictures at the town

hall before the end of the decade.

This grain store is believed to have been on the site of the present Sunshine Theatre, and may

have been subsequently incorporated in the redeveloped cinema. This corresponds to the large

timber-framed and corrugated-iron clad shed which held the auditorium. The next

development of cinema entertainment came when Benz 'all-Australian talkie equipment' was

installed at the Sunshine Picture Theatre in 1930. In the following year George Kirby arrived

in Sunshine and took over the cinema. He was responsible for extensive alterations carried out

between September 1937 and March 1938, renaming it 'The New Sunshine Theatre'.

A sketch of the planned renovation by architect R. Morton Taylor depicts a strongly horizontal

façade, emphasised by banding, with a promenade deck at the front and a cantilevered

verandah across its entire length. Like the Astor Theatre, the splayed proscenium was to be

surrounded by vertical ‘panels of light’. The auditorium seating, however, was ‘raised stalls’

without a dress circle (

, 24/02/1937). The dress circle or balcony was phased out in the

late 1930s as raked stalls alone were cheaper to build. The final design for the diminutive

Sunshine Theatre differed somewhat from the sketch: it has curved corners, applied vertical

accents, different massing, and a cantilevered verandah (complete with Art Deco pressed metal

lining) over the entrance only.

The grand re-opening was held on 31 March 1938, and the local newspaper, the

, reported at length the names of the local dignitaries who attended, the dimmable

neon lights, the beautifully painted proscenium arch, comfortable seating, and excellent

ventilation. Special praise was reserved for the manager, George Kirby:

The architect for the extensive remodelling (new façade, entrance vestibule, foyer, bio box,

dress circle and stalls) was R. Morton Taylor (1896-?). Taylor is best known for the Astor

Theatre, an intact Art Deco cinema of xxx. Born and raised in Melbourne, Taylor studied at

the University of Melbourne. He is known to have designed several cinemas in the early 1920s,

in Coburg and Gardenvale (Catrice, 1991:203). He joined the practice Bohringer, Taylor &

Johnson as a partner in 1926, and by 1929 they had reportedly built or remodelled 60 theatres

and cinemas across Australia and New Zealand (

, 22/02/1929: 1 suppl.). Their most

famous theatres are the ‘atmospheric’ picture palaces: the Moorish State (now Forum), Flinders

Street, Melbourne (1928-29), and the Civic, Auckland (1929). An atmospheric cinema has an

auditorium ceiling painted to imitate a night sky, as though the audience is outside (Goad,

2012:95-96).

R Morton Taylor resigned his partnership with Bohringer, Taylor and Johnson at the end of

1929 and went into private practice. He continued to design cinemas in the 1930s, as well as

blocks of flats, hotels and office buildings (

, 11/1936:64-65). Much of the

cinema work was in fact remodelling and retrofitting early cinemas for use in the talkies era.

Among his Art Deco and Moderne style cinemas in Melbourne, the Astor Theatre of 1935 is a

well-known survivor.

Little is known of Taylor’s work after the 1930s. In 1944 he moved office to 31 Queen Street,

Melbourne, before relocating to Canberra in 1949 to take up the post of Director of Works for

the ACT. In Canberra, in the first half of the 1950s, he was involved in the design of housing,

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

extensions to East Wing of the Provisional Parliament House, and overseeing tenders for

general construction works.

The impact of the cinema in Sunshine extended to amateur cinematographers such as John H.

Jackson, who was president of the Sunshine Movie Society in 1935. The cinema had mixed

fortunes in the post-war period, operating profitably into the 1960s, but then suffering a

decline in the '70s, eventually closing and being converted to a furniture store in around 1975.

It is now used as offices by the Smith Family.

Condition/Integrity

In good condition. The conversion to commercial use has meant the foyer interior has been

stripped, windows have been inserted into the originally blank façade, and the entrance

remodelled in modern glazing. The rear corrugated-iron clad shed which held the auditorium

has been replaced with a masonry shed of approximately the same footprint.

Context/Comparative analysis

One of a diminishing number of suburban cinemas of the pre-World War Two period, for

example, the demolished Padua Theatre in Brunswick.

References

C.G. Carlton (ed.), Sunshine Cavalcade, 1951, p.50.

Catrice, Daniel,

, 1991.

, as cited.

Goad, Philip, ‘Bohringer, Taylor & Johnson’ in Goad & Willis, eds.,

, 2012, pp 64-65.

, from the files of the Art Deco Society, as cited.

Prue McGoldrick, When the Whistle Blew, 1989, pp.119, 143-4.

Public Building File, PROV VPRS 7782/P1, Unit 285, File 1480.

Sunshine Advocate, January 1936 & 1 April 1938, p 1.

Recommendations

Recommended for inclusion in the Heritage Overlay of the City of Brimbank Planning

Scheme

CITY OF BRIMBANK

HO19 – Commonwealth Munitions Housing Estate, Sunshine

Statement of Significance

This estate is of national historical significance as part of a Federal Government-initiated

housing scheme for workers in the munitions industry in the Maribyrnong-Footscray area, the

largest concentration of defence production establishments in the whole of Australia, when

World War Two began. The Housing Commission of Victoria acted as the construction

authority, and the houses were designed by architect Marcus Barlow. It was possibly the first

major Commonwealth war housing scheme to be undertaken and was one of the few large

scale housing schemes undertaken in Victoria during World War Two. This part of the estate

included the main recreational and community area, serving the whole estate of 234 houses.

History

Date:

1941-42

These houses were built in 1941-42 for the Commonwealth Government, to house workers

employed in the munitions industry in the Maribyrnong-Footscray area, the largest

concentration of defence production establishments in the whole of Australia. The munitions

industry had been established in the Footscray- Maribyrnong area from the late nineteenth

century with the Colonial Ammunition Factory. It expanded following Federation, and during

significant periods such as the two World Wars. By the 1940s there were several thousand

workers employed in the Ammunition, Explosives and Ordnance Factories, and other related

industries. Particularly during World War Two, the need for mobilising a vast civil workforce,

concentrated in a small area, put extra pressures on local services, and particularly housing. In

an attempt to deal with this, the Commonwealth Government purchased land just outside of

Footscray for housing for munitions workers.

Altogether 235 houses were constructed, of which 42% (or 98 houses) are on the Brimbank

side of Duke Street. The design of the estate was in part contributed to by Melbourne

University architecture students. On 30 April 1941 Harold Holt, then Minister for Labour and

National Service, wrote a Cabinet memorandum referring to the issue of housing for munition

workers and urged consideration of the problem by the full cabinet. He reported that the

establishment of new munitions factories and the extension of existing establishments had

resulted in an abnormal influx of workers into certain areas. This influx had brought in its train

serious problems in connection with housing, transport and essential services to meet the needs

of the growing army of munition workers (NAA, MP180/2/0, CM/4) He pointed out that

there were difficulties at Footscray, which needed to be faced, 'without delay'. The housing

problem there was causing 'much dissatisfaction' and a large proportion of the 18,000 workers

at the Government munition factories in the vicinity were travelling considerable distances to

their work. He tabled a report which pointed out that one of the first provisions made by the

United States in launching its armaments program was the erection of suitable accommodation

for munitions workers in expanding armaments industries. The United States experience in the

previous war had shown that poor housing reduced the output of major munition plants and

its government was therefore allocating $60 million for defence housing in World War Two.

In Australia the same foresight had not been shown. One of the recommendations in the report

tabled by Mr Holt was that consideration be given to a scheme to provide funds, 'if necessary

out of Defence moneys', for acquiring land and building 'up to 1,000 low-cost houses in the

Footscray-Braybrook-Sunshine-Essendon area for letting to munitions workers, the houses to

be controlled by the Department of the Interior and the actual work carried out under the

direction of the Victorian Housing Commission or the War Service Homes Commission or

both'. The report stressed that it seemed essential that 'early action should be taken to improve

the housing position in the Footscray area' and suggested that 'immediate steps might be taken

to erect, as a first instalment, 300 cottages'. It noted that the Footscray-Maribyrnong area was

highly industrialised and included some of Australia's largest munition factories'. It saw the

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

Footscray, Braybrook, Sunshine and Essendon area as a safe building investment and

commented that: ' These homes are urgently required but ... it is not likely they will be erected

without assistance from the Government'. The report noted that there was 'any amount of

suitable building land in Footscray, Braybrook, Sunshine and Essendon'.

Within five months of Holt's memo to Cabinet, the Commonwealth Government was

acquiring land for their Munitions Workers Housing Scheme by compulsory acquisition, in

the Sunshine-Braybrook area. One of the blocks they acquired was an area of 18 acres 3 roods

23 perches, within Section 18, Parish of Cut Paw Paw, purchased from I.G.Heap and

K.G.Hooper ( NAA MP268/1/0, CL 15837, also Commonwealth of Australia Gazette,

No.197, 2 October 1941) This was within the present City of Brimbank, and was the area

bounded by Monash Street, Cobrey Street, Duke Street, and Devonshire Road, and extending

just beyond Yewers Street. The precinct includes Nixon Street, Yewers Street, Baker Street and

Lowe Crescent, concrete roads which were constructed as part of the estate and which encircle

a small recreation reserve. (Melway 41 A1) The total unimproved value of the land was £10,

600. 19 shillings and this appears to have been the amount paid by the Commonwealth to the

owners. Another portion of the War Worker Housing area developed by the Commonwealth

was on the east side of Duke Street, bounded by Duke, Lily, Darnley and Myalla Streets, at the

top end of Devonshire Road. This section of the estate is outside the boundaries of the City of

Brimbank, but was once within the City of Sunshine. It is the largest part of the total scheme.

The Housing Commission of Victoria (HCV) acted as the construction authority for the

Commonwealth Government. There are two house types in the precinct: brick duplexes and

freestanding concrete houses, all of which are single-storey and set back behind a front lawn.

While similar house types from other Housing Commission estates were used, the munitions

industry workers were well paid and could afford higher rents, so the houses were of a superior

type. A variety of roof forms, porches and chimneys were used for the brick duplexes, to avoid

visual monotony. Roofs are a combination of gables and hips with wide eaves, balanced by the

vertical lines of broad rectangular brick chimneys. Original porch types include those with a

flat concrete hood supported on metal pipes only or with a ‘hit-and-miss’ brick wall, a recessed

porch with a ‘hit-and-miss’ brick wall, and a front porch beneath the roofline supported by a

timber post. The houses had built-in brick planter boxes below their front and side windows.

In all, 218 duplex units were constructed.

As the war progressed, shortages of materials and labour worsened. For this reason, the final 50

houses built were of reinforced concrete, using a patented pre-fabrication method developed by

surveyor T.W. Fowler. The concrete houses have a high hipped roof and a lower projecting hip

on one side of the façade. The houses did not originally have verandahs, though a brick and

timber pergola was added over the entrance of several of them early on. Despite the shortages,

the concrete houses were still considered a superior type largely because they were detached

dwellings and because of ‘extras’ such as indoor toilets and brick flower boxes around the front

porch.

The patented Fowler method was first used by the HCV at the Fisherman’s Bend Estate of

1939 in Port Melbourne. The method was described in the HCV Annual Report of 1943-44 as

follows:

The Fowler method, patented in 1928, was the precursor of today’s tip-slab construction. In

1947 the HCV began to mass-produce house walls at its Homesglen factory, instead of on-site,

which allowed more rapid production.

CITY OF BRIMBANK

Don Webster, a Sunshine resident and a member of the Sunshine & District Historical

Society, has recalled coming to Sunshine and living in one of these houses. He refers to them in

a 'Memories' section of the Sunshine Primary School history:- During 1942/43 a housing

estate of 250 houses was established in East Sunshine to house the families of people involved

in the defence industry. I was one of these children, transferring from Ararat to commence

Grade 5 in Sunshine at the start of the 1943 school year. A photograph of the houses appears

in the book, Sunshine Cavalcade, published in 1951. The caption reads: 'A sample of the 235

Commonwealth Government Houses constructed in the Devonshire Road Estate'. Don

Webster has recalled that the design of the houses on the estate was the work of architecture

students at the University of Melbourne. One of these, Bruce Robinson, son of H.E.

Robinson, the Shire Engineer, later became an architect. Other sources name Marcus Barlow,

designer of Melbourne’s Manchester Unity building as the architect (Bechervaise).

The small reserve at the centre of the estate (adjoining Lowe Crescent) was an important

recreational resource for the children of the estate and also the venue for end-of-the-year

picnics and social gatherings. The houses were let to the munition workers, at a weekly rate of

27/6d for a three-bedroomed house and 25/- for a two bed-roomed house. The houses were

not available for purchase until some time after the end of World War Two. The original sub

division of the area from Duke Street and Devonshire Road to Hampshire Road and Ballarat

Road goes back to a far earlier period, the early 1850s, when a group of developers bought two

square miles of land (Sections 18 and 19) in the Parish of Cut Paw Paw and subdivided it into

small allotments, naming the roads after English counties.

Description

Part of an estate of concrete houses and brick semi-detached houses built by the

Commonwealth to house munitions workers, a total of 234 houses. The development extends

across Duke Street with a substantial number of houses in Braybrook, now the City of

Maribyrnong (58%).

The Brimbank precinct (98 houses) comprises houses in Baker Street, Nixon Street, Yewers

Street, Cobrey Street, Duke Street, Devonshire Road and around Lowe Crescent. A

characteristic design element of the area is the use of concrete roads and the curving Lowe

Crescent on a small irregular shaped square with landscaping of contemporary date and also

later periods. The houses themselves are generally hipped roof with overhanging eaves. The

Nixon Street, Baker Street, Yewers Street and Lowe Crescent houses are concrete-walled, while

the others are generally red brick, with a series of long duplexes in Duke Street and Cobrey

Street.

The War Workers Housing Scheme estate appears to have survived virtually intact, with only

two houses demolished and replaced by modern dwellings. A number of the houses are brick,

most of them semi-detached residences or 'maisonettes', quite different in design from

anything else in the municipality. The brick houses are mainly on the western side of Duke

Street, the eastern side of Cobrey Street and a section of the south side of Devonshire Road.

Most of the remaining houses are concrete, detached residences, especially in Yewers Street,

Lowe Crescent, Baker Street and Nixon Street. All the houses have tiled roofs. It appears that a

total of 97 houses are remaining out of the original 98). The houses are as follows:- 47-77

Duke Street, west side (16 houses) - brick 2-22 Cobrey Street, east side (11 houses) – brick

112-138 Devonshire Road, south side (14 houses) - some brick, some concrete 2-32 Nixon

Street, south side (16 houses) - some brick, some concrete 1-27 Lowe Crescent, north side (14

houses) - some concrete, some brick 2-16 Yewers Street, east side (8 houses) - concrete 1-7,

11-15 Yewers Street, west side (7 houses) - concrete 1-15 Baker Street west side (8 houses) -

concrete 14-16 Baker Street (2 houses) - concrete 10 Monash Street (1 house) – brick.

The houses are largely intact, with the primary change seen being the replacement of original

timber windows with aluminium units (at 1, 11, 13, 14 Baker St; 12, 14 Cobrey St; 112-116A,

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

122, 128, 130, 134 Devonshire Rd; 57, 65 Duke St; 1, 3, 7, 11, 13, 19, 21, 27 Lowe Cr; 10

Monash St; 4, 6, 10, 14, 16, 22 Nixon St; 3, 4, 5, 6, 10-16 Yewers St). A number of the small

front porches have also been enclosed or otherwise altered (at 9, 11 Baker St; 8, 16 Cobrey St;

122, 128, 134, 138 Devonshire Rd; 57, 63, 65, 75, 77 Duke St; 3, 9-13 Lowe Cr; 4, 6, 16

Lowe Cr; 26 Nixon St; 2, 3 Yewers St).

A number of the houses retain one of the two original front fence types, both of them quite

low in height. Some brick houses retain a low clinker brick wall (at 126 & 132 Devonshire Rd,

47, 53, 67, 69-73 Duke St, 28, 32 Nixon St). Concrete houses generally have low pipe and

cyclone wire fences (at 1, 3, 11 Baker St; 112-116A Devonshire Rd; 7 Lowe Cr; 2-12 Nixon

St; 2, 5-7, 6-10, 13, 16 Yewers St), as do some of the brick houses on the east side of Duke

Street.

The surviving houses that are contributory to the precinct include the following:

ADDRESS, DATE,

DESCRIPTION

1 Baker Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

3 Baker Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

7 Baker Street, 1942, Concrete detached house - clad with fake brick fibre cement panels

9 Baker Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

11 Baker Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

13 Baker Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

14 Baker Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

16 Baker Street, 1942, Concrete detached house - dual occupancy with 2000c rendered two

storey

2 Cobrey Street, 1942, brick duplex

4 Cobrey Street, 1942, brick duplex

6 Cobrey Street, 1942, brick duplex

8 Cobrey Street, 1942, brick duplex

10 Cobrey Street, 1942, brick duplex

12 Cobrey Street, 1942, brick duplex

14 Cobrey Street, 1942, brick duplex

16 Cobrey Street, 1942, brick duplex

18 Cobrey Street, 1942, brick duplex

20 Cobrey Street, 1942, brick duplex

22 Cobrey Street, 1942, brick duplex

112 Devonshire Rd., 1942, Concrete detached house

114 Devonshire Rd., 1942, Concrete detached house

116 Devonshire Rd., 1942, Concrete detached house

116A Devonshire Road, 1942, Concrete detached house

118 Devonshire Rd., 1942, Concrete detached house

120 Devonshire Rd., 1942, Concrete detached house

122 Devonshire Rd., 1942, Concrete detached house

124 Devonshire Rd., 1942, brick duplex

126 Devonshire Rd., 1942, brick duplex

128 Devonshire Rd., 1942, brick duplex

130 Devonshire Rd., 1942, brick duplex

132 Devonshire Rd., 1942, brick duplex

134 Devonshire Rd., 1942, brick duplex

136 Devonshire Rd., 1942, brick duplex

138 Devonshire Rd., 1942, brick duplex

47 Duke Street, 1942, brick duplex

49 Duke Street, 1942, brick duplex

51 Duke Street, 1942, brick duplex

53 Duke Street, 1942, brick duplex

55 Duke Street, 1942, brick duplex

CITY OF BRIMBANK

57 Duke Street, 1942, brick duplex

63 Duke Street, 1942, brick duplex

65 Duke Street, 1942, brick duplex

67 Duke Street, 1942, brick duplex

69 Duke Street, 1942, brick duplex

71 Duke Street, 1942, brick duplex

73 Duke Street, 1942, brick duplex

75 Duke Street, 1942, brick duplex, recently rendered

77 Duke Street, 1940s, brick detached house

1 Lowe Crescent, 1942, Concrete detached house, brick veneer at rear - No 12 Baker Street.

3 Lowe Crescent, 1942, Concrete detached house

5 Lowe Crescent, 1942, Concrete detached house

7 Lowe Crescent, 1942, Concrete detached house

9 Lowe Crescent, 1942, Concrete detached house

11 Lowe Crescent, 1942, Concrete detached house

13 Lowe Crescent, 1942, brick duplex

15 Lowe Crescent, 1942, brick duplex

17 Lowe Crescent, 1942, brick duplex

19 Lowe Crescent, 1942, brick duplex

21 Lowe Crescent, 1942, brick duplex

23 Lowe Crescent, 1942, brick duplex

25 Lowe Crescent, 1942, brick duplex

27 Lowe Crescent, 1942, brick duplex

10 Monash Street, 1942, brick duplex

2 Nixon Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

4 Nixon Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

6 Nixon Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

8 Nixon Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

10 Nixon Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

12 Nixon Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

14 Nixon Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

16 Nixon Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

18 Nixon Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

20 Nixon Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

22 Nixon Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

24 Nixon Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

26 Nixon Street, 1942, brick duplex

28 Nixon Street, 1942, brick duplex

30 Nixon Street, 1942, brick detached house

32 Nixon Street, 1942, brick duplex

2 Yewers Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

3 Yewers Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

4 Yewers Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

5 Yewers Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

6 Yewers Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

7 Yewers Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

8 Yewers Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

10 Yewers Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

11 Yewers Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

12 Yewers Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

13 Yewers Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

14 Yewers Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

16 Yewers Street, 1942, Concrete detached house - dual occupancy with c2000 brick veneer at

rear

17 Yewers Street, 1942, Concrete detached house

A number of places, which formerly contributed to the historical significance of the precinct,

have been demolished or extensively altered in the last decade or so. These include the

following:

5 & 5A Baker Street, now modern semi detached brick veneers, 2000s

12 Baker Street, dual occupancy with rear of 1 Lowe Crescent rendered two storey brick veneer

2000c 15 Baker Street, dual occupancy at the rear of 116A Devonshire Road.

16A Baker Street, dual occupancy at the rear of 16 Baker Street.

59 Duke Street, vacant

61 Duke Street, vacant - new development

8 McGrath Street, dual occupancy at the rear of 7 Yewers Street.

1 Yewers Street, mock colonial brick veneer units, 2000c

9 Yewers Street, 2 storey brown brick veneer, 1980s

15 Yewers Street, dual occupancy at the rear of 17 Yewers Street

2/16 Yewers Street, dual occupancy at the rear of 16 Yewers Street.

There are also two blocks which appear to have been originally part of the proposed

Commonwealth estate but have houses of different period and style. These are not

contributory to the precinct.

43 Duke Street, brick veneer, 1950s, Typical

45 Duke Street, brick veneer, 1950s, Typical

Context/Comparative analysis

The larger part of this same development occurs across Duke Street in the City of

Maribyrnong. There are a few comparable Commonwealth housing schemes in Melbourne,

with the Defence Houses at Maribyrnong being the most relevant. War Service Homes in

various parts of Melbourne also demonstrate similar (but different in detail) architectural styles,

as do other Housing Commission of Victoria estates from the immediate pre-war and post-war

period (for example, the concrete houses in Fisherman’s Bend and in Newport, brick duplexes

at the Ascot Estate in Ascot Vale).

Condition/Integrity

In good condition and retaining much of the original character of the area due to the retention

of original fence, concrete roads and planting. Typical alterations include the replacement of

original timber windows and frames with aluminium units, the enclosure of the small, open

entrance porches, installation of external window blinds and security shutters, and the removal

of brick front fences. The face brick generally remains unpainted.

References

Lodged Plan 69426

Bechervaise, Harry, ‘A history of the concrete housing project (Victorian Housing

Commission)’, Undergrad. Thesis, University of Melbourne, 1970.

Australian Archives (Defence Department,)

Sands & McDougall Melbourne Directories 1939, 1946, 1948

National Archives of Australia, NAA, MP180/2/0, Cm/4; MP268/1/0, CL 15837

Sunshine Advocate, 18 November 1949 (reference to purchase of homes by residents)

Pauline Ashton & Joan Murray (eds.), History of School 3113 Sunshine. Melbourne, 1991.

C.G.Carlton (ed.) Sunshine Cavalcade, Melbourne, 1951, p. 36.

Don Webster, personal comment

Housing Commission of Victoria Annual Reports, 1940-41, pp 733-4; 1941-42, pp 8-10;

CITY OF BRIMBANK

1943-44, p 1165.

Recommendations

The Commonwealth Munitions Housing Estate Heritage Area is recommended for inclusion

in the Heritage Overlay of the Brimbank City Council Planning Scheme. The Nixon Street

Lowe Crescent area around the park forms the most consistent group of houses, which, along

with the concrete road, require careful retention of the original design fabric.

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

HO20 – Concrete Housing Estate, Leith Avenue, Sunshine

Statement of Significance

The Leith Avenue precinct is of regional historic and architectural significance as an interesting

example of a planned building settlement, under the auspices of the Sunshine Harvester

Works, though with State Savings Bank backing. The use of concrete in house building was

still quite an innovation in 1925, though some concrete houses had been built in Sunshine by

1910. The spaciousness of the lay-out of Leith Avenue suggests the influence of Garden City

planning principles.

History

Date: 1925

These houses were built in 1925 as part of a scheme financed by the State Savings Bank, and

probably initiated by H.V. McKay, who previously owned the land. The houses were

earmarked for purchase by Harvester Factory employees. In May 1924 the Sunshine Advocate

reported on 'Concrete cottages: Two Dozen for Sunshine':

Previously the land was owned by H.V. McKay. He had bought a block of land, previously

sub-divided in 1890, and re-subdivided it, introducing a new road, called Leith Avenue. He

offered it to the War Service Homes Commission in 1919, but, for some reason, the offer was

not taken up.

By April 1925, the Sunshine Advocate reported that half of the houses had already been

constructed, and an Australian Home Beautiful article in December of that year reported the

completion of all 28. The method used was the Monolyte system, a system of reinforced

monolithic concrete construction developed in South Australia by Mr SB Marchant in 1913.

It was described in detail in Australian Home Beautiful and in The Australian Home Builder.

Six standard designs were prepared by GB Leith, the State Savings Bank’s chief architect, and

concrete moulds were prepared to suit. On site, the iron-lined mould for a given house model

was assembled, with steel reinforcement as well as timber door and window frames set into the

mould. The concrete was mixed and poured by patented machinery, ensuring its quality and

consistency. A house – including chimneys – could be poured in just four to six hours, and

then left to cure for a week. After that, the mould was stripped off and reconfigured to produce

CITY OF BRIMBANK

the next house model. Each house was finished with conventional timber floor and roof

framing, with terracotta tile cladding, and the internal walls plastered.

In the ratebooks the 25 houses are listed under the heading 'McKay's Subdivision'. Eighteen of

the houses were in Leith Avenue, with a wide open plantation down the middle of the street.

The remaining eight houses were in Hampshire Road, on either side of Leith Avenue. By 1926

all but one of the houses were built and occupied. The first occupants of the Leith Avenue

houses which still remain today were:

Feeney, Daniel, gardener No. 1 Leith Avenue

Wilson, Alex, fitter No. 3

Coursey, Herbert, plate moulder No. 5

Mayes, Donald, labourer No. 5

Ryan, William, assembler No. 7

Martin, Emily, domestic duties No. 9

Budd, Francis, expert No. 11

Keiller, Hugh, clerk No. 13

Murphy, Annie, domestic duties No. 15

The first occupants of the Hampshire Road houses which still remain today were:-

Dodson, Arthur, engineer, No. 51 Hampshire Road

Hein, Matthias, messenger No. 53

McLellan, Lewis, clerk No. 57

The timber house at No. 55 was not built on till later and the block is shown as vacant on the

Board of Works map of 1930. There was some turnover of residents over the next few years,

probably because of the effects of the Depression. However, a number of the above were listed

in the 1931 Melbourne Directory.

All the thirteen houses on the north side have been demolished, mainly owing to the expansion

of Sunshine Technical School, in the 1970s-80s. Some of the houses in Hampshire Road have

also gone, due to the expanding needs of Sunshine Primary School. Other houses in the estate

are at 51 to 57 Hampshire Road. Some comparison might be made with the concrete houses in

Sunbury which were also sponsored by H.V. McKay, who lived his last years in Rupertswood,

Sunbury.

Description

This small estate of concrete houses has an unusual form of street layout, featuring a court

constructed with concrete road, kerb and channel around an oblong central grassed median.

Houses on the south side are concrete-walled with tiled roofs. Others on the north side have

been demolished, partly for expansion of the adjacent secondary college, in the days when it

was Sunshine Technical School. There are eight surviving houses at 1 to 15 Leith Avenue and

also four houses surviving at 51 - 57 Hampshire Road. Three of the surviving houses in Leith

Ave feature notable faceted chimney shafts. 17 Leith Ave. was demolished some years ago,

probably at the same time as the houses on the north side of the street. The estate was

originally symmetrical.

Of the six house designs prepared for the State Savings Bank by GB Leith, illustrated in The

Australian Home Builder, three survive in the estate. Type 1 is block-fronted with a simple

hipped roof. It has overhanging eaves at the centre of the façade, creating a window hood above

the windows, resting on triangular timber brackets. Windows are paired six-over-one sashes in

boxed (projecting) frames. These houses have decorative timber porches on the side elevation.

Another distinctive feature of these houses is the narrow faceted cast-concrete chimneys.

Type 2 has a wide hipped-roof bay at the front with a recessed porch beneath it. The porch is

lit by a window-like opening on the façade. The windows of this type of house are set into

moulded render surrounds.

There is one surviving house with a California Bungalow form (Type 3), on Hampshire Road.

Its most distinctive feature is a half-timbered gable-roofed porch at the front. The porch is

supported on three pairs of timber posts, which in turn rest on low rendered piers.

There have been a few alterations to the house, primarily the replacement of the timber box

windows with aluminium units (at 11-15 Leith Ave; 53 Hampshire Rd).

The timber post and woven wire fences visible in the 1925 photos are mainly gone, but a few

sections on the sides of front yards survive (at 9 Leith Ave, 53 Hampshire Rd).

ADDRESS, PLACE, DATE:

51 Hampshire Road, Concrete House, 1925

53 Hampshire Road, Concrete House, 1925

55 Hampshire Road, Timber House with fake brick cladding, 1930s

57 Hampshire Road, Concrete House, 1925

1 Leith Avenue, Concrete House, 1925

3 Leith Avenue Concrete House, 1925

5 Leith Avenue Concrete House, 1925

7 Leith Avenue Concrete House, 1925

9 Leith Avenue Concrete House, 1925

11 Leith Avenue Concrete House, 1925

13 Leith Avenue Concrete House, 1925

15 Leith Avenue Concrete House, 1925

One house on the south side of Leith Avenue has been demolished and is now only a vacant

lot:

17 Leith Avenue Vacant (house demolished)

CITY OF BRIMBANK

Context/Comparative analysis

Concrete housing became one of the standard forms of the Victorian Housing commission in

the post WW II period, but were still relatively rare in the 1920s. Few other examples are

known from the City of Brimbank in this period. A large housing scheme under the Victorian

State Bank auspices in Garden City Port Melbourne involved a number of concrete houses.

Condition/Integrity

While more than half of the estate has been demolished (the entire north half and one of the

south side) the remaining houses are quite intact, and form a consistent streetscape. Typical

alterations include the replacement of original timber windows and box frames with

aluminium units and the enclosure of porches.

References

Australian Home Beautiful, 12 Dec. 1925, p 68.

Australian Home Builder, 15 April 1925,p 60.

Lodged Plan 11131

MMBW plan, 1930

Shire of Braybrook ratebooks

Sands & McDougall Melbourne Directories

Sunshine Advocate, 4 April 1924, p 1; 3 May 1924, p 3.

National Archives of Australia, NAA, Series MP 327/1/0, VL19/1685.

Recommendations

The Concrete House Estate Heritage Area is recommended for inclusion in the Heritage

Overlay of the Brimbank Planning Scheme.

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

HO21 – ICI Residential Heritage Area, Deer Park

Statement of Significance

The ICI Residential Heritage Area is of State historical and architectural significance as a rare

and distinctive company township and for its association with the nineteenth century origins

and twentieth century expansion of the former Nobel (later ICIANZ, now ORICA) factory

which became the major private manufacturer of explosives and munitions in Australia.

The estate, initiated by Leathercloth Pty. Ltd., (a subsidiary of Nobel) is one of a number of

company sponsored housing schemes in the Brimbank municipality and reflects a pattern of

development where nationally important industries established in green-fields sites beyond the

urban fringe and so needed to provide accommodation and other facilities for workers. The

inclusion of the recreation reserve in the precinct and the adjacent separately listed Deer Park

Hall, and Hunt Club Hotel (a former ICI training centre) further demonstrate the company

role in local planning and development.

The precinct is significant for its association with the largest explosives, chemicals and plastics

manufacturer in Australia, originally established here under the importer Jones Scott and Co in

the 19th century, and then becoming the Australian Lithofracteur Company (Krebs Patent), a

rival to Nobel's dynamite patent, and in production in Australia only a couple of years after

Nobel's Ardeer factory was opened. It later merged with the Nobel company and then became

ICIANZ before the most recent change to ORICA.

This important industry played a major role in mining through the development of

progressively more efficient and safer explosives. It also contributed to wartime production in

ammunition, initiators and in World War Two, the development of synthetic ammonia

production and construction of the Defence Explosives Annexe No 5 (later the Albion

Explosives Factory). The Leathercloth plant was influential in the development of synthetic

materials for the motor industry including vinyl seat fabrics and hoods, and has continued to

play an important role in synthetic fabrics.

The houses in Station Road, Ballarat Road, Hume Street and Hyde Street reflect a sequence of

development in their distinctive styles and forms, reflecting the colonial origins of the company

in their Indian Bungalow forms as well as giving insight to the social and economic status of

their proposed occupants with the larger and more elaborate houses intended for factory

managers. The inclusion of concrete houses in the estate also points to the innovation in

building in the later period, possibly as a response to war-time material shortages.

The recreation reserve and contemporary (but altered) pavilion are significant in demonstrating

the role of the company in providing community services to their workers, and as evidence of

the urban design and landscape approaches to company housing in the period.

1880s – 1930s

Jones Scott & Co. was established in 1873 and became the Australian Lithofracteur Company

(Krebs Patent) in 1875, when land owned by Peter Wilkie in Deer Park was purchased. It

became Australian Explosives & Chemical Co. and later began making superphosphate under

the name Federal Fertilisers. In 1897 Nobel Dynamite Trust Ltd purchased the works,

eventually itself becoming part of the larger conglomerate ICIANZ in 1928 which also

absorbed a number of other munitions works, including the Spotswood Fuse Factory and

Kynoch's West Footscray ammunition works.

Major expansions occurred at the plant during the two world wars. ICI Leathercloth began

operations at Deer Park in 1928. During the Second World War, ICI was involved in

considerable military explosives and ammunition manufacture including the development of

Australia's first synthetic ammonia plant (no longer extant) and the construction and

development of the Albion Explosives Factory, built opposite on Ballarat Road. However,

CITY OF BRIMBANK

while the company was officially known as ICIANZ, then ICI Australia following World War

Two, and now ORICA, the factory was locally known as Nobel's.

In choosing the Deer Park site, the first managers were seeking a site isolated from population,

yet convenient for transport to Melbourne and with a reliable water supply. One of the

drawbacks was the limited local labour force, and for much of the factory's history, buses,

charabancs, converted trucks and special trains ferried workers from the Sunshine area and

beyond. Some redress for the housing situation was made by the company erecting houses itself

in the twentieth century with the current housing development. Still, by 1939 there were only

75 residents of Deer Park, which included several of the outlying farms. Several large houses

were built for plant managers, in the 1920s on Ballarat Road near the former main entrance at

Fitzgerald Road.

Beginning in the late 1920s the Leathercloth Factory created an estate of smaller dwellings was

at the Ballarat Road-Station Road corner. The first houses were constructed on the existing

frontages, beginning with the brick California Bungalow at 789 Ballarat Road and the timber

Indian Bungalows at 62-68 Station Road (all by 1930). Between 1930 and 1935 further

California Bungalows were constructed on Ballarat Road (Nos. 791-797) and Indian

Bungalows on Station Road (Nos. 58-60 & 70-76). Houses were first built in Hyde Street,

parallel to Station Road, in 1934-35; these were timber Indian Bungalows (Nos. 4-10). About

the same time, the Deer Park Reserve was also laid out on Ballarat Road by ICI, with Hume

Street providing an additional access point. A final Indian Bungalow was constructed on Hyde

Street in 1938-39 (No. 12). By this time, ownership of the houses in the estate had transferred

from Leathercloth Pty Ltd to Nobel Australasia Pty Ltd.

Under Nobel’s ownership there were two final phases of houses construction. Between 1939

and 1942 brick bungalows and Old English houses were constructed at 785-787 Ballarat Road,

and behind them at 3-7 Hume Street. A group of nine unusual cottages were constructed at the

south end of the estate in 1945-49, at 52-56 Station Road and 14-24 Hyde Street. The six

cottages on Hyde Street were owned by ICI of Australia and New Zealand, while the Station

Road cottages were owned by Nobel (as was the rest of the estate). These houses are shown as

having concrete walls on the subdivision plan (LP 31437). By the early 1950s there was a total

of 34 houses in this estate.

Condition/Integrity

Most of the original houses in the residential component of the precinct are intact, with recent

evidence of sympathetic restoration. In some cases there has been a lack of understanding of

the original period of construction of houses, and a misguided attempt to ‘Victorianise’ them,

see in particular the 1940s concrete cottage at 56 Station Road. In addition, a number of

houses have had the original timber windows replaced with aluminium units, particularly the

concrete cottages.

Description

This heritage area includes the ICI housing scheme of the late 1920s-1940s in Ballarat Road,

Station Road, Hume Street and Hyde Street. This housing scheme centred on a group of

streets formed near the corner of Ballarat Road and Station Road and comprised houses of

three distinct styles.

These are:

Brick Californian Bungalow style: 789, 791, 793 (altered), 795 Ballarat Road. Red brick, with

verandahs across part of the front, featuring more complex roof forms with gable and hipped

sections. These houses were constructed between 1928 and 1935.

Indian Bungalow style: at 76-58 Station Road, 4-12 Hyde Street: These include wide timber

verandahs following the roof line and returning a short distance down one side. Red brick

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

chimneys feature corbelled tops on the earlier houses (62-76 Station Road). These houses were

constructed between 1928 and 1939, in four groups: 62-68 Station Road (1928-30); 70-76

Station Road (1930-34); 58-60 Station Road and 4-6 & 10 Hyde Street (1934-35); and 12

Hyde Street (1938-39).

Interwar bungalows and Old English houses: 787 Ballarat Road and 5-7 Hume Street are

classic 1930s hipped-roof brick bungalows with face brick or a rendered finish. 785 Ballarat

Road and 3 Hume Street are rendered, hipped-roof houses with a dominant front chimney and

eaves-less front gable. They were constructed between 1939 and 1942.

Cottage style: 16, 20-24 Hyde Street and 52-56 Station Road (altered), relatively small

concrete-walled houses with asymmetrically facades, small verandah/porch over the entrance

and tapered chimneys. The major and minor front gables are filled with pressed-metal panels in

a shingle pattern. The roofs appear to be of pressed-metal ‘tiles’. They had timber double-hung

sash windows, but most have been replaced with aluminium units. These houses were

constructed between 1945 and 1949.

The principal alterations have been made to the verandahs, with one partly bricked in with an

arched colonnade. Others have had windows replaced or new openings made. The Ballarat

Road houses include one relatively unaltered (No. 789) which features stained shingles, wire

fabric front fence and some remnant garden planting. The house at No. 787 also retains its

wire fence. The house at 797 Ballarat Road has had its facade completely reconstructed in

cream bricks in an unsympathetic style, and is considered non-contributory to the precinct.

A corner site at Ballarat and Hume Street comprises a maternal and child health centre of later

c.1960 date, but evidently on land reserved for community use in the original subdivision.

The surviving houses that are contributory to the precinct include the following:

ADDRESS, PLACE, DATE, Significance Level

785 Ballarat Road, ICI House, Rendered Old English house, 1940-42, Contributory,

787 Ballarat Road, ICI House, Brick Bungalow, 1940, Contributory,

789 Ballarat Road, ICI House, Brick Californian Bungalow, 1928-30, Contributory,

791 Ballarat Road, ICI House, Brick Californian Bungalow, 1930-34, Contributory,

793 Ballarat Road, ICI House, Brick Californian Bungalow, 1930-34, Contributory,

795 Ballarat Road, ICI House, Brick Californian Bungalow, 1934-35, Contributory,

Hume Street, Deer Park cricket ground pavilion and recreation reserve, 1934-35,

Contributory,

3 Hume Street, Rendered Old English house, 1939-40, Contributory,

5 Hume Street, red brick Bungalow, 1939-40, Contributory,

7 Hume Street, rendered Bungalow, 1939-40, Contributory,

4 Hyde Street, timber Indian Bungalow, 1934-35, Contributory,

6 Hyde Street, timber Indian Bungalow, 1934-35, Contributory,

10 Hyde Street, timber Indian Bungalow,1934-35, Contributory,

12 Hyde Street, timber Indian Bungalow, 1938-39, Contributory,

16 Hyde Street, Cottage style, concrete, 1945-49, Contributory,

20 Hyde Street, Cottage style, concrete, 1945-49, Contributory,

22 Hyde Street, Cottage style, concrete, 1945-49, Contributory,

24 Hyde Street, Cottage style, concrete, 1945-49, Contributory,

52 Station Road, Cottage style, concrete, 1945-49, Contributory,

54 Station Road, Cottage style, concrete, 1945-49, Contributory,

56 Station Road, altered Cottage style, concrete, 1945-49, Contributory,

58 Station Road, timber Indian Bungalow, 1934-35, Contributory,

60 Station Road, timber Indian Bungalow, 1934-35, Contributory,

62 Station Road, timber Indian Bungalow, 1928-30, Contributory,

64 Station Road, timber Indian Bungalow, 1928-30, Contributory,

66 Station Road, timber Indian Bungalow, 1928-30, Contributory,

CITY OF BRIMBANK

68 Station Road, timber Indian Bungalow, 1928-30, Contributory,

70 Station Road, timber Indian Bungalow, 1930-34, Contributory,

72 Station Road, timber Indian Bungalow, 1930-34, Contributory,

74 Station Road, timber Indian Bungalow, 1930-34, Contributory,

76 Station Road, timber Indian Bungalow, 1930-34, Contributory,

A number of places were identified in the original survey as of potential significance but were

not deemed to be contributory to the significance of the precinct. These are later houses which

while continuing a connection with the ICI factory and its employees, do not exhibit the same

period or style of the contributory buildings. The places are:

ADDRESS, PLACE, DATE, Significance Level

1 Hume Street, house, brick veneer, 1960s, Typical

2 Hume Street, house, cream brick veneer, 1960s, Typical

9 Hume Street, brick veneer Bungalow style, 1950s, Typical

11 Hume Street, brick veneer Bungalow style, 1950s, Typical

799 Ballarat Road, Kindergarten, Cream brick modernist structure, 1960s, Typical

797 Ballarat Road, ICI House Brick Californian Bungalow, 1934-35, Typical, heavily altered

front

Several places associated with the Orica Factory or adjacent to the heritage precinct have also

been identified in the heritage study, but have not been included in the present precinct. These

include:

ADDRESS, PLACE, DATE, Significance Level, Site No.

Ballarat Road, Braybrook Shire Hall site, 1885, Individually listed archaeological, 127

Ballarat Road, ICI Explosives Laboratory, 1875, Individually listed State, 007

Ballarat Road, ICI Explosives complex (now ORICA), 1875, Individually listed State, 006

Station Road, ICI Leathercloth Factory, 1920, Individually listed State, 009

50 Station Road, Deer Park Hall, 1935, Individually listed Local, 083

775 Ballarat Road, Hunt Club Hotel, 1886/1920s?, Individually listed Local, 076

Ballarat Road, Former ICI Gatehouse, 1920s

761 Ballarat Road, former House ICI manager, 1925c

757 Ballarat Road, former House ICI manager, 1925c

Ballarat Road, former ICI - Federal Fertilisers, 1897

Ballarat Road, former I.C.I. Ammonia Plant, 1940 c.

A number of places, which formerly contributed to the historical significance of the precinct,

have been demolished in the last decade or so. These include the following:

ADDRESS, PLACE

DATE

8 Hyde Street, demolished former Indian Bungalow.

14 Hyde Street, demolished former concrete house, now modern brick veneer, 1980s

18 Hyde Street, demolished former concrete house, current house 1980s

78 Station Road, vacant site

Condition/Integrity

Most of the original houses in the residential component of the precinct are intact, with recent

evidence of sympathetic restoration. In some cases there has been a lack of understanding of

the original period of construction of houses, and a misguided attempt to ‘Victorianise’ them,

see in particular the 1940s concrete cottage at 56 Station Road. In addition, a number of

houses have had the original timber windows replaced with aluminium units, particularly the

concrete cottages.

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

Context/Comparative analysis

The ICI precinct is rare in Melbourne for its combination of large scale industry and company

sponsored housing schemes. It follows on historically from the housing program H.V. McKay

established for his Sunshine Harvester Workers, while other manufacturers such as CSR

erected limited houses for its managers and foremen at its Yarraville Refinery.

References

Sands & McDougall Melbourne Directories.

Shire of Braybrook Rate Books, 1930, 1934-5, 1939-40, 1942-43, 1949-50.

Lodged plans 31437, 51854.

ICI Archives Deer Park, including aerial photographs.

Prue McGoldrick, When the Whistle Blew, 1989, pp.11, 63-64.

Museums Victoria, aerial photographs of Deer Park, c1938.

University of Melbourne, aerial photograph of Deer Park, 1945.

CITY OF BRIMBANK

HO25 – Railway Station Estate, Sunshine

Statement of Significance

The Railway Station Estate - Wright & Edwards Heritage Area is of regional historical and

architectural significance as a sub-division first developed in the speculative boom of the 1880s.

This related to the industrialisation of the area and the creation of a new suburb - the township

of Braybrook Junction. The few remaining houses of the early 1890s are amongst the oldest in

the district and are a remarkable survival from the era of the 1890s Depression, when many

newly-built houses were moved.

This subdivision is also significant for its diversity and the range of housing from different

periods, especially the years immediately following the establishment of H.V. McKay's

Sunshine Harvester Works at Braybrook Junction. The area provides an interesting comparison

with H.V. McKay's housing estate, since many of his Ballarat workers moved or built homes

here in the early years of the 20th century. The neighbourhood's population more than

doubled in ten years, with further expansion in the 1920s -30s and during and after World

War Two, creating consistent streetscapes of freestanding, single storey timber houses with a

consistent garden setback.

History

Date: 1890-1 to 1950s

This heritage area comprises the Braybrook Railway Station Estate subdivision, which was

being promoted in 1890-1891. The vendors of the estate were Johnson, Johnson and Mills,

merchants, who had purchased 133 acres of land from Joseph Solomon in the late 1880s.

Solomon had leased the land to local farmers. The estate included the extensive railway and

engineering works of Wright and Edwards, who had extended their operations from the inner

city and had become a public company. The chairman of the Board of Directors was Sir

Benjamin Benjamin, a leading player in the company's establishment. His name and the names

of other directors of the company were given to the streets of the subdivision. Following the

establishment of the Braybrook Implement Company, Wright and Edwards Wagon works and

other industries at Braybrook Junction in the late 1880s, the suburb was promoted as a suitable

workers residential area. Although the new suburb of Braybrook Junction included

subdivisions on both sides of the railway line, the larger settlement was in this area of the

Railway Station Estate. Approximately 40 houses were built in this area by 1892. Most of the

community facilities serving the new settlement were in the vicinity - several shops, the first

school, and a hall (privately owned). The post office, fire station, state school, and (from 1895)

church, were on the adjacent Post Office Estate, between Morris Street and Derby Road. The

first school was a private school, begun in the front room of a shop building in Morris Street.

When the Education Department consented to establish a school, it rented premises, first the

building in Morris Street, then the public hall in Hampshire Road, at the corner of Morris

Street. Although most of the original structures have gone, some of the institutions begun in

this period still continue on different sites within the locality - the State School, St. Mark's

Anglican church and the post office. In the 1890s depression, when several banks, building

societies and builders went into liquidation, many home buyers lost their mortgages and a

number of houses in the vicinity were removed. The Wright and Edwards company went into

liquidation early in 1891, though the carriage works continued to operate for some time, in

order to complete some government contracts. The factory buildings were dismantled and

moved in 1897. The once fast-growing settlement soon became depopulated, though the

school, church, post office and a few houses did remain. The number of occupied houses went

down to 20 by 1897. The hall, once on the southern corner of Morris Street and Hampshire

Road, was moved to Bacchus Marsh in 1897. The oldest surviving houses of this period are

probably the row of five single-fronted brick houses, on the south side of Benjamin Street, a

relic of the 1880s-early 1890s Melbourne boom. Such houses were unusual in the outer

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

suburbs and there are no comparable sets of houses in the local area. They were built about

1890-91, as a set of six and are listed in the Braybrook Shire ratebook of 1891-2, where they

are listed as occupying lots 12,13 and 14 of Section 11, Portion E, Parish of Cut Paw Paw. The

area was undergoing a revival by 1911-12, due to the relocation and expansion of H.V.

McKay's Sunshine Harvester Works from Ballarat and the growth of the surrounding

settlement, renamed Sunshine in 1907. Many of McKay's employees bought land in the area

and built homes. There were 24 houses in Morris Street by 1914 and 17 houses in Benjamin

Street. The whole area contained within the Railway Station Estate precinct had a total of 60

houses by 1916 and 200 houses by 1930. The Board of Works map, produced that year, shows

that Morris and Benjamin Streets were well supplied with houses, while Couch Street, in

particular, was still sparsely settled. This was one of the few areas within the suburb now

renamed 'Sunshine' where residents were not buying their house or land from H.V. McKay.

However, the McKays did buy some lots in this area. For example, Sam McKay bought the

house at 51 Stanford Street and adjoining lots in Morris Street. He had sold these by 1914.

The Depression of the 1930s had a severe effect on the area and a number of houses were

vacant for a time. Building activity slowed down to some extent and only a few more houses

had been built when World War Two began in 1939. During World War Two, the

Commonwealth Government took over some of the vacant lots, by compulsory purchase, to

build housing for munition workers. Even though the Government had initiated a large war

workers housing estate in Sunshine-Braybrook in 1943, there was still a shortage of housing for

the vast numbers of people working in defence industries. The lots acquired by the

Government had a total value of £2645 and included: Benjamin Street (lots E1-6): 1, 3, 5, 7,

9, 11; Chapman Street (lots D-10-11) 19, 21; Couch Street (lots D 31-35) 14,16,18, 20, 22

(lots D41-42) 4-6; (lots C5-6) 9, 11; and Wright Street (lots C34-42) 62, 64, 66, 68, 70, 72,

74, 76, 78 (note that only the Benjamin Street properties are within the precinct). With the

expansion of Sunshine's population in the 1950s -60s, the remaining vacant lots in this area

were built on. Some of the older houses have been demolished and replaced with units,

especially in the area of Morris Street and Benjamin Street, where the blocks are slightly longer

(120 feet) than in Couch or Chapman Streets.

Description

All the original allotments in this rectangular grid subdivision were 40 foot frontages. Several of

the original 'lanes', between the blocks, can still be seen. In some cases, two houses were built

on one allotment. The best examples of this re-subdivision process can be seen in the row of

1890s houses in Benjamin Street. This row of five single-fronted detached brick Victorian

houses has simple parapet ornament, corrugated iron verandahs and iron lace (some original).

This parapeted row house type in the form of detached brick cottages is unique in Sunshine.

Six houses were built on three of the original subdivision blocks (two to a block). These blocks

were originally 40 foot frontage, with a 120 foot depth. One of the houses (the second from

the east end of the group) has subsequently been demolished. The facades have had details

altered, some with windows replaced, others having the cast iron ornament removed or altered,

probably representing attempts to undo renovations of the mid twentieth century.

At least eleven houses survive from the early 1890s subdivision, including the five single

fronted houses in Benjamin Street (Numbers 25, 29, 31, 33, 35); one single-fronted house in

Morris Street (No. 179); the house of Edmund Parsons at 114 Morris Street; and the house at

51 Stanford Street. Outside the precinct boundaries are 1890s houses at 46 Chapman Street

(altered), and reputedly 79 Couch Street (though this is not obvious from its present form).

While the subdivision and the first few houses date to late nineteenth century, most of the

Heritage Area was developed in the first half of the twentieth century. Some houses in the area

are said to have been moved here from Ballarat, when H.V. McKay's workers followed him to

Braybrook Junction in 1907. These houses, ranging from Edwardian, through building booms

in the interwar period and early postwar period, provide consistent streetscapes of freestanding,

single storey timber houses with mostly iron roofs, with a consistent garden setback.

CITY OF BRIMBANK

Edwardian houses in the Heritage Area, of c1905-1915, tend to have an asymmetric façade,

with a projecting gable (often half-timbered) and a bullnose verandah on the other side. The

roof is otherwise hipped, and often quite tall with a tiny gablet at the peak. They have single

pane sash windows or groups of casement windows, often beneath a decorative timber hood.

The doors are solid four-panelled, like the Victorian houses, or have an upper arched pane of

glass, and have both highlights and sidelights. Chimneys are similar to the Victorian ones, or

have rendered mouldings at the top. Intact examples include: 2 and 70 Benjamin Street; and

95, 97, 101, 120, 122, 144 and 169 Morris Street.

There are many houses from c1915-25 that have features both of the Edwardian and California

Bungalow houses, and can be called ‘Transitional’ or ‘Federation Bungalows’. These houses

have hipped roofs, but at a much lower pitch than was seen in the Edwardian period. They

usually have a half-timbered front gable, also with a lower pitch. The verandah details – turned

posts and a timber frieze – are similar to those of Edwardian houses. The verandah roof,

however, is a plain skillion and often extends across the entire facade, supported on timber

brackets, as was common to California Bungalows. Chimneys are plain and narrow, some with

bands of clinker bricks. Intact examples include: 10, 48 and 75 Benjamin Street; and 99-105,

106 and 161 Morris Street.

California Bungalows, of the 1920s, are one of the most common types in the Heritage Area,

particular in its western half. They have gabled roofs – either facing the street or parallel to it,

though some of the earlier ones still have low hipped roofs. There is usually a smaller gable

facing the street which may be half-timbered, rendered or shingled. Front verandahs have

skillion or hipped roofs, and are often carried across the entire façade. Verandah supports tend

to be heavy and range from paired timber posts resting on masonry (brick or render piers), and

tapered masonry piers or simple cast-concrete columns on top of a low masonry wall.

Verandahs often have simple triangular brackets. The ends of roof rafters tend to be visible.

Windows often have multiple panes in the upper sash. Some of them have box frames that

project from the wall of the house; others are grouped in angled bays. Doors of this era had a

high-set window above shallow panels or vertical boards, and sometimes a sidelight. Intact

examples include: 4, 49 (1930s), 61 and 82 Benjamin Street; 49 Hampshire Road; and 117,

123, 145, 162 and 164 Morris Street.

Houses of the 1930s and early 1940s tend to have tiled hipped roofs, some with a projecting

hipped-roof bay. Verandahs have simple brick or render supports. Windows often have

geometric leadlights in the upper sashes, and are grouped in twos and threes. Later windows

have horizontal glazing bars, and can be found on the corner of the building. There are several

exceptions among houses of this era as some were built in the late 1930s in earlier styles, such

as Transitional and California Bungalow designs. Intact examples include: 5, 7, 32 and 95

Benjamin Street; 142 Morris Street; and 45 Stanford Street.

Early post-war houses of c1945-55 demonstrate the second main period of housing

development in the Heritage Area. They are double fronted with a hip roof and projecting

hipped bay to create an asymmetric façade. Roofs are often clad with tiles, in contrast to houses

of the earlier periods. Timber windows are placed in banks to create a horizontal format, and

some are placed at corners, continuing the late interwar style. Front porches are minimal in size

and either set below the roof line or beneath a concrete slab roof. Decoration is minimal and is

often limited to stepped ‘waterfall’ chimneys, which often are a major feature of the façade, and

porch detailing in cream brick. Intact examples include: 81 and 89-93 Benjamin Street; 33 and

46 Hampshire Road; and 115 and 124 Morris Street.

The surviving houses that are contributory to the precinct include the following:

ADDRESS, PLACE, DESCRIPTION, DATE

2 Benjamin Street, Edwardian era house, bullnose verandah, 1915c

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

4 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920c

5 Benjamin Street, House, fibro house for munition workers, 1940s

7 Benjamin Street, House, fibro house for munition workers, 1940s

8 Benjamin Street, House, altered Edwardian era house, 1915c

9 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house check, demolition permit issued 2004 1930s

10 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920c

12 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920c

14 Benjamin Street, House "Blamdina", weatherboard house, 1920c

15 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920c

16 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1940c

18 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1910c

19 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920c

20 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1937

21 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920c

22 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1937 (NB: rear unit not contributory)

23 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

25 Benjamin Street, House, Victorian Brick Row House, 1890-91c, Individually listed

Regional significance in 2000 study #133

26 Benjamin Street, House, weatherborad house, 1956

29 Benjamin Street, House, Victorian Brick Row House, 1890-91c, Individually listed

Regional significance in 2000 study #134

31 Benjamin Street, House, Victorian Brick Row House, 1890-91c Individually listed

Regional significance in 2000 study #135

33 Benjamin Street, House, Victorian Brick Row House, 1890-91c Individually listed

Regional significance in 2000 study #136

35 Benjamin Street, House, Victorian Brick Row House, 1890-91c Individually listed

Regional significance in 2000 study #137

37 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1950

38 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1900-10

39 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1947

41 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1950

43 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1950

45 Benjamin Street, House, well preserved weatherboard, 1920s

46 Benjamin Street, House, rendered house similar to those on ICI Estate, 1948-49

47 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

48 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

49 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1930s

50 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1900-10

51 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

52 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

53 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

54 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

56 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1930s

57 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

58 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1930s

59 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

61 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

62 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

63 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

64 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

66 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

67 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

68 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

69 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1949

70 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1900-10

CITY OF BRIMBANK

71 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

72 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

73 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

75 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

76 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

77 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

78 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

79 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

80 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1955

81 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1947

82 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

84 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1952

86 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1952

88 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1952

89 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1952

90 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1930s

91 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1953

93 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1953

95 Benjamin Street, House, weatherboard house, 1940

30 Hampshire Road, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

31 Hampshire Road, House, weatherboard house, 1950s

32 Hampshire Road, House, weatherboard house, 1930s

33 Hampshire Road, House, weatherboard house, 1949

41 Hampshire Road, House, weatherboard house, 1940s

42 Hampshire Road, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

43 Hampshire Road, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

44 Hampshire Road, Richards’ Dairy and residence, 1936, Local

46 Hampshire Road, Moderne cream brick house and fence, c1955

47 Hampshire Road, House, weatherboard house, 1930s

49 Hampshire Road, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

94 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

95 Morris Street, House, Cast iron verandah, 1915c

97 Morris Street, House, 1915c

99 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

100 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

101 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1910s

103 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

105 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

106 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

110 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

113 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1955

114 Morris Street, Parsons house, weatherboard, 1890s, Individually listed Local significance

in 2000 study #113

115 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1955

117 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

119 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1955

120 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1910s

121 Morris Street, House, weatherboard Californian bungalow style, diamond pattern lead

light, 1920s

122 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1910s

123 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

124 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1956

125 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

127 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1940s

129 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

135 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

136 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

137 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1910s

138 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1900-10

140 Morris Street, House, brick house, 1948

141 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

142 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1930s

143 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, single house appears to cover two blocks

shown subdivided in cadastre, 1920s

144 Morris Street, House, Unusual weatherboard and block fronted Edwardian era house,

recent carport added at side, 1915c.

145 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, single house appears to cover two blocks

shown subdivided in cadastre, 1920s

148 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1940s

149 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1950s

153 Morris Street, House, cream brick house and fence, 1956

154 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920-30s

156 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1910s

158 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

159 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

161 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

162 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

163 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

164 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

165 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

167 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

168 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1950s

169 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1910s

171 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

173 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, 1920s

175 Morris Street, House, weatherboard house, altered windows, recent addition of disabled

ramp, 1920s

179 Morris Street, House, Single fronted ashlar fronted timber cottage, convex verandah,

1890s 45 Stanford Street, House, rendered house, garage and fence, 1940c

49 Stanford Street, House, weatherboard house, 1940c

51 Stanford Street, House, hipped roofed, weatherboard house, altered, 1900c

There have also been several places demolished and replaced or extensively altered, which were

once contributory to the significance of the precinct, but are no longer so.

11 Benjamin Street, former fibro house, demolished c2005

55 Benjamin Street, House, extensively altered weatherboard house, 1950

65 Benjamin Street, House, extensively altered weatherboard house, 1940s

83 Benjamin Street, House, extensively altered weatherboard house, 1940s

39 Hampshire Road, weatherboard cottage, 1920s, demolished c2010

48 Hampshire Road, House, extensively altered cream brick house, 1955

150 Morris Street, former weatherboard house, demolished c2000

155 Morris Street, extensively weatherboard house (clad in fake brick), 1950

Context/Comparative analysis

While most houses were not built in this estate until the post WW I period, the estate contains

a unique group of nineteenth century detached brick row houses, not found elsewhere in the

City of Brimbank, and the nearest occurring examples to be found in West Footscray (City of

CITY OF BRIMBANK

Maribyrnong). Edwardian and interwar houses are well represented in the McKay Housing

Estate heritage areas (HO23 and HO24), though the Transitional/Federation Bungalows are a

unique feature of this Heritage Area and likely represent the work of a single builder. Finally, it

is the only precinct in the City of Brimbank to illustrate typical early postwar residential

development. These early houses continued the massing and garden setbacks of the prewar

houses, thereby forming a very consistent infill development. This can only be compared to the

south end of the ICI Housing Estate (HO21) which comprises late 1940s concrete houses.

These houses are idiosyncratic and do not represent typical development of the time. (Though

single examples were built outside the ICI Estate, including one at 46 Benjamin Street.)

Condition/Integrity

While some houses are altered, the group retains sufficient integrity to identify the original

character. Recent renovations have both conserved original features, but also resulted in loss of

details. Typical alterations are the replacement of original timber windows with aluminium

units, removal/replacement of original verandah supports, and covering weatherboards with

vinyl or aluminium siding.

References

E. Popp, Glimpses of Early Sunshine, 1979, pp.74-75. Sands & McDougall Melbourne

Directory, 1890-1951. Shire of Braybrook Rate Books

Michael Cannon, The Land Boomers, Melbourne, 1974

Commonwealth Gazette, No. 127, 29 June 1944 in National Archives of Australia, MP 268/1

Recommendations

The Railway Station Estate - Wright & Edwards Heritage Area is recommended to be included

as a precinct in the Heritage Overlay of the Brimbank Planning Scheme.

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

APPENDIX C – CORRECTIONS

CITY OF BRIMBANK

HO130 – Shops, 193-199 Hampshire Road, Sunshine

Currently the extent of HO130 is given in the HO Schedule as 193-199 Hampshire Road, and

this is reflected in the current HO map (see below, from Planning Maps on-line, accessed 4

Nov. 2013).

The buildings to be protected as part of the Heritage Overlay are described as follows in the

place citation (from the 2007

): ‘Two-storey

[shop building], at a corner facing the railway.’

The Place History notes that there were four original shops within the building, Nos 193-199,

but this does not accord with the physical or documentary evidence.

First of all, the MMBW plan (Detail Plan No. 3972) of 1931 shows the footprint of the

building as it was built.

This 1931 plan was overlaid, to scale atop a current aerial photo of the site.

The current building with address 199 Hampshire Road is the narrow strip to the north of No.

197. This area was vacant in 1931, as shown on the MMBW plan. (And the building

numbered 199 in 1931 is now No. 201, to allow for this.)

On site inspection has confirmed that the building comprising three two-storey shops of this

description is those with street addresses 193, 195 and 197 Hampshire Road. The building at

199 Hampshire Road is a single-storey shop which adjoins No. 197 on the north side.

While there are rows of brick projecting from the north wall of No. 197, which would have

allowed the building to be extended to the north, there is no indication that the building fabric

of No. 199 comprises an early (say, pre-WWII extension) that might have been part of or

sympathetic to the original, 1924 design of the two-storey shops. Instead, its parapet and roof

form clearly indicate that the current single-storey building at 199-203 Hampshire Road is a

post-war building of negligible architectural quality, which replaced the yard that stood to the

north of No. 197 in 1931 as well as the separate shop building number 199-201 at that time.

CITY OF BRIMBANK

From this analysis, it is clear that the shop at 199 Hampshire Road has no relation to the group

of two-storey shops of 1924 at 193-197 Hampshire Road.

Recommendation: Correct the extent of HO130 in the HO Schedule, HO maps, and place

citation to: 193-197 Hampshire Road. Remove 199 Hampshire Road from the Heritage

Overlay.

HERITAGE GAPS REPORT

HO3 – Massey Ferguson Complex, Sunshine

Currently, the Massey Ferguson Complex, HO3 on the Brimbank Heritage Overlay and H667

on the Victorian Heritage Register (VHR), is shown in an inconsistent way to other VHR

places on Clause 43.01 Heritage Overlay Schedule (see below).

While most of the columns indicating municipal HO controls are marked with a hyphen for

the other VHR places, they are marked with ‘No’ for the Massey Ferguson Complex. This is

misleading as the VHR does, in fact, impose controls on external paint and internal alterations,

among others.

Recommendation: The entry for the Massey Ferguson Complex in Brimbank’s Heritage

Overlay Schedule should be corrected to have hyphens in the first four ‘controls’ columns, and

a blank in the ‘Incorporated Plan’ column.