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MemorandumofHeritageAdviceThe Avenue Heritage Overlay Precinct

ConsultantheritageadviceregardingthepotentialforanextensiontotheHeritageOverlayandupdatedStatementofSignificance

01 Introduction

This memorandum of advice was prepared for the City of Stonnington. It comments on the potential for The Avenue Heritage Overlay Precinct to be extended to include additional properties on the western side of The Avenue.

The analysis below draws on-site inspections and a review of the relevant heritage studies and documents, including the current citation for The Avenue Heritage Overlay Precinct (prepared by John Statham, Stonnington’s then heritage advisor, in May 2013), the Prahran Conservation Study (Nigel Lewis, 1983), the Prahran Character and Conservation Study (Nigel Lewis, 1992), the City of Prahran Conservation Review (Context Pty Ltd, 1993) and the City of Stonnington Gap Study Heritage Overlay Gap Study – Heritage Overlay Precincts Final Report (Bryce Raworth Pty Ltd, March 2009). Reference is also made to the Stonnington Amendment C181 Panel report (10 October 2014).

We have been asked to comment on whether the The Avenue Heritage Precinct, Windsor (HO148) should be extended to include a number of properties on the western side of The Avenue. The existing precinct includes eight properties on the east side of The Avenue (42-56 The Avenue). No external paint controls or internal alteration controls apply under HO148, although tree controls apply over the street trees (Plantanus sp.). The area previously identified as a potential precinct extension encompasses the properties at 31 to 53 The Avenue (odd numbers). In addition to investigating this area, the broader environs of HO148 were inspected with a view to identifying if further extensions to the precinct might be warranted.

Most of the dwellings from 31 to 53 The Avenue (odd numbers) were constructed during the 1880s, with the exception of the two dwellings at 51 and 53 The Avenue (which were constructed c1900), and the three non-contributory developments at 35,

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37 and 49 The Avenue.1 A number of the extant Victorian buildings have been adapted for use as medical consulting rooms, including those at 31 and 33 The Avenue (which have been connected to one another by a modern single-storey addition that is visible from the street and have recently had their rear stables demolished). The street facades appear to be of reasonable integrity to their original condition, although a number of the dwellings have undergone a range of unsympathetic alterations. Most notably, the Victorian building at 47 The Avenue has been denuded of much of its Victorian detailing, although its Victorian form remains legible. Although all the properties have crossovers and driveways, garden setbacks to the street tend to be free from prominent vehicle accommodation. Although none of the front fences are original, they are generally sympathetic to the character of the precinct.

02 History

The draft citation for the Avenue Precinct provides the following general account of the history of The Avenue:

The land in the area bounded by High Street, Chapel Street, Dandenong Road and Williams Road was offered for sale in 1850 as four lots, each of around 30 acres.2 The two western Lots, Nos 56 and 61, along the east side of Chapel Street were quickly developed with shops along the Chapel Street frontage, with a nest of streets, that would become known as Pasley Village, to their rear. Development in this area was further stimulated by the construction of the Windsor Railway Station complex in 1885 and the opening of the cable tram service in 1888.3 Lots 55 and 62 to the west of Williams Road developed more slowly and produced streetscapes that were more suburban in character.

The two long, north south roads, Hornby Street and The Avenue, were planned as extensions of roads proposed for St Kilda and were, consequently, known as Nelson Street East and Westbury Street North, respectively. Ann Street, Earl Street East and Mary Street extended east from Hornby Street but terminated at the rear fences of allotments in The Avenue. Gertrude Street was, and remains, the only through road.

In the 1850s and 1860s, a handful of houses were constructed between, present day, Hornby Street and Williams Road. Betty Malone makes reference to Ivy Cottage and Yarraville Cottage around the northern end of, what would become, The Avenue.4 However little other development occurred away from the street frontages.

By 1870, the Avenue had been subdivided and, by the mid-1870s, the Prahran City Council had begun making roads and drainage channels to either side of the street. Blocks were unusually large, often with frontages of 65 feet. The first families to settle in The Avenue lived towards Dandenong Road. The generous allotments, handsome dwellings and the resulting suburban character attracted residents of higher social stature than was the case in Pasley Village a few hundred metres to the

1 For the purposes of this report, it is assumed that construction occurred in the year prior to first

the entry in the Sands & McDougall Directory. Actual construction dates may vary slightly. 2 Unless noted otherwise, the early history of the area is drawn from Betty Malone, Discovering

Prahran No.4, pp.58-9. 3 Context Pty Ltd, City of Prahran Conservation Review, Vol 3 Urban Conservation Areas, p.64. 4 Betty Malone, Discovering Prahran No.4, p.28.

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west. Residents included squatters retiring to the city, solicitors, accountants, civil servants, merchants, surveyors and insurance agents.

Figure 1 Subdivision Plan, 58 Choice Building allotments at East St Kilda, thought to

date from around c.1870. Source: Stonnington History Centre Registration No PH11067.

The MMBW Detail Plan No.1006 of 1897 (Figure 2) reflects the situation prior to the redevelopment of the land at 51 and 53 The Avenue. It shows The Avenue as it approached its mature state. The western side of the street as it appears today was largely developed by this time, although the cordial factory shown at 51 The Avenue was demolished by 1900 and subdivided to form the two residential lots, 51 and 53 The Avenue.

03 Statement of Significance

The Statement of Significance for the existing The Avenue Heritage Precinct, Windsor (prepared by John Statham in May 2013) reads as follows:

What is significant?

The Avenue Precinct, Windsor, is a small residential area of freestanding villas developed through the 1880s (Nos 42, 44 and 46) and 1890s (Nos 48-6).

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Elements that contribute to the significance of the precinct include:

• The consistent construction dates. • The consistent open setbacks of the villas. • The detached form of individual villas. • Complete absence of modern infill development and prominent additions and

alterations. • Modest scale of the residential buildings which are typically of one storey. • All the buildings within the group are of high individual distinction and have been

identified as significant buildings under the City of Stonnington Planning Scheme. Otira at No 56 is graded A1.

• Face brick, timber or render materiality and roofscapes with chimneys and pitched roof forms clad in tiles.

• Intactness of the individual dwellings to their original states. The villas typically survive with their presentation to the street unaltered retaining verandahs and decorative detailing.

• Garden setbacks to the street which are (with the exception of 46 and 54) free from prominent vehicle accommodation.

• Most buildings retain original fences to the street. • The large plane trees in the median strip along the eastern side of The Avenue.

How is it significant?

The Avenue Precinct, Windsor, is of local historical (HERCON Criteria A, C, & F) and aesthetic significance (HERCON Criteria B, D, & E).

Why is it significant?

The Avenue Precinct is of historical significance retaining remnants of one of the earliest and most elegant streets in the former City of Prahran (8.2 Middle-class suburbs and the suburban ideal). Development in the area generally derives from the surge of building construction which swept across South Yarra, Prahran and Windsor during the land boom which continued into the 1880s and beyond (3.3.1 Crown Land Sales, 3.3.3 Speculation and land boomers). The Precinct is unusual for the extent to which development proceeded unabated during the recession of the 1890s. Areas of this level of intactness to their early state are becoming increasingly rare. The Precinct is of some additional interest for its associations with, noted developer, Henry Cheel and with St Matthew's Church.

The Avenue Precinct is of aesthetic significance for its, largely intact, collection of late Victorian buildings. By local standards, these are unusually grand reflecting the stature of their original occupants (8.4.1 Houses as a symbol of wealth status and fashion). Mature plane trees along the eastern side of The Avenue provide a garden setting for the group (8.7.1 Creating leafy suburbs).

The significance of the Precinct is evidenced by the unusually high gradings assigned to buildings within the group (Refer to the Schedule of Gradings appended to this report). Such consistently high levels of individual significance are rarely encountered within Council's Heritage Overlay areas.

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04 Background and Discussion

The Avenue Heritage Precinct, Windsor was first identified as a heritage area in the 1992 Prahran Character and Conservation Study. While The Avenue contains a relatively large number of Victorian buildings, the existing heritage overlay precinct extended only to this one significant sequence of villas, on the basis of their interest as a particularly fine group. The Study recommended that the group of eight buildings currently subject to HO148 be incorporated into the Heritage Overlay to protect the group, and noted that:

This small sequence provides an intact example of the former character of The Avenue prior to the major flat and institutional redevelopment. These houses are excellent examples of single storey villas of the late 1880s with elaborate detail in their finishes. (Precinct 8, p.34)

Although this was generally the form that the precinct took when the Heritage Overlay control was first implemented, the dwelling at 42 The Avenue was erroneously omitted from the final mapping. This was rectified as part of Amendment C181 and Amendment C182 to the Stonnington Planning Scheme, and the original HO148 boundary was implemented in 2015.

In 1993, the Prahran Conservation Review (Context Pty Ltd) not only recommended that the Urban Conservation Area (UCI Area) be adopted as exhibited, but also recommended that the boundaries of the area be reviewed to consider the contribution made by the remaining villas of a similar form and development period on the western side of the street (Volume 3: Urban Conservation Areas, December 1993, p.66). Specifically, this study noted that:

This Urban Conservation Area is of significance as a grouping of buildings. Opposite, those villas that remain contribute to the overall quality of the area despite their generally lower level of intactness. Redevelopment of the western side of the street for high density would impact on this group of houses. Consideration should be given to extending the Urban Conservation Area to include both sides of the street.

It also provided the following Statement of Significance for the precinct:

The Avenue Urban Conservation Area has significance as a fine grouping of late Victorian houses set on large garden allotments and illustrating the architectural qualities and subtle diversity in detailing of this period. The large Plane trees along the street, established gardens, and remaining examples of palisade fencing are important streetscape attributes.

As part of research undertaken by this office into the dwellings at 31 and 33 The Avenue, it was recommended that further investigation be undertaken to assess whether The Avenue precinct could potentially be extended to include a number of the buildings on the west side of The Avenue.

On the basis of our recent inspections of The Avenue Heritage Overlay Precinct, we recommend that the boundary of HO148 be extended to include the row of Victorian buildings and two Federation buildings on the opposite (western) side of The Avenue.

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Although the larger precinct would include some double-storey apartment blocks and townhouses – and would consequently not have the level of integrity and architectural distinction of the existing, more limited precinct – it would encompass both sides of the street and would be readily legible as a precinct of predominantly Victorian development.

05 Recommendations

Having regard for the above, we believe that the western section of The Avenue from 31 to 53 (odd numbers) is of sufficient historical and aesthetic significance to warrant inclusion within HO148.

06 Rationale for precinct extension

The northern end of The Avenue is predominantly comprised of substantial late-Victorian and early Federation buildings (with the exception of the non-contributory double-storey apartment blocks at 35 and 49 The Avenue, and the double-storey townhouses at 37 The Avenue). As such, the area of the proposed extension demonstrates one of the existing precinct’s key periods of developments. The dwellings in the recommended precinct extension also share many of the attributes listed in the existing statement of significance for HO148, including the generally uniform front and side setbacks, the largely consistent scale of built form, pitched roofs, and palette of materials. Noting this, the existing Statement of Significance for the precinct would only require minor amendments to ensure it accurately reflected the building stock in the expanded precinct. The Statement of Significance already explains why housing stock in The Avenue is important. Moreover, a precinct statement of significance is general in nature and does not normally need describe all buildings or streetscapes in detail.

Most of the buildings on the western side of The Avenue are broadly consistent with the buildings already within HO148 in terms of period, scale, and architectural expression. A number of the dwellings in the proposed precinct extension have had original fabric removed, and presumably this is why these buildings were omitted from the precinct in the 1992 Prahran Character and Conservation Study. The east side of The Avenue was identified as a Level 2 streetscape in this study, while the west side was identified as a Level 3 streetscape. That aside, the legibility of the northern section of The Avenue to its late-nineteenth century state has not been unduly compromised by changes to individual buildings or prominent upper storey additions, although there is some modern infill development.

Further to the south, The Avenue has been subject to substantial development pressures in recent decades and is more mixed in character, containing many three and four-storey developments. The generous size of the allotments along The Avenue no doubt helped make the street attractive to developers. Although some of the buildings located in the southern part of The Avenue (outside the extent of proposed HO148) are of an equivalent standard to graded buildings within the proposed HO, they are

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isolated from the more intact sections of The Avenue by non-contributory places. This part of The Avenue does not warrant inclusion in a heritage overlay precinct.

A map of the recommended precinct extension and schedule of gradings is provided below. Most of the buildings are provisionally graded ‘significant’ – the equivalent of a B – as they are largely intact representative (i.e. typical) examples of modest late-Victorian housing. The Victorian villa at 47 The Avenue has undergone a greater extent of alteration, and is identified as being a ‘contributory’ heritage place – the equivalent of a C grading – on account of the unsympathetic alterations to its front facade including the removal of the original verandah, front windows and roof cladding. Despite these changes, the building remains legible to its Victorian form, and in this respect makes some contribution to the Victorian character of the northern end of the streetscape.

07 Comparative analysis

A number of similar streetscapes to that found in The Avenue survive throughout the Municipality. These include: Fawkner Street, South Yarra (part of the Fawkner Street/Davis Avenue Precinct, HO131); Donald Street, Prahran (currently part of the Chapel Street Precinct, HO126), and Elm Grove, Armadale (part of the Armadale Precinct, HO130). The buildings along the eastern side of The Avenue Precinct tend to display a higher level of architectural distinction than those found in these other heritage overlay precincts, with many of the buildings being graded A2 or higher. Such consistently high levels of individual significance are not commonly encountered within Council’s Heritage Overlay areas. Although the buildings along the western side of The Avenue tend to be more representative examples of Victorian villas that have undergone a greater degree of change, they nonetheless contribute to the significance of the precinct in terms of period, character, scale, and other built form characteristics, and warrant inclusion within HO148 on that basis.

08 Updated Statement of Significance

The updated Statement of Significance for The Avenue Heritage Precinct, Windsor, builds on that prepared by John Statham in May 2013:

What is significant?

The Avenue Precinct, Windsor, is a small residential area of freestanding Victorian villas developed from the early 1880s to 1900.

Elements that contribute to the significance of the precinct include:

• The consistent construction dates. • The consistent open setbacks of the villas. • The detached form and generally consistent scale of individual villas. • Few prominent additions and alterations. • All the buildings along the eastern side of The Avenue within the precinct are of high

individual distinction and have been identified as significant buildings under the City

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of Stonnington Planning Scheme. These villas remain largely intact to their original states, and typically survive with their presentation to the street unaltered retaining verandahs and decorative detailing.

• Few examples of non-contributory modern infill development with the exception of the developments at 35, 37 and 49 The Avenue.

• Face brick or rendered masonry materiality, and roofscapes with chimneys and pitched roof forms clad in slate or tiles.

• Garden setbacks to the street which are generally (with the exception of 46 and 54) free from prominent vehicle accommodation.

• A number of buildings along the east side of The Avenue retain original fences to the street. All of the buildings have fences that are sympathetic to the late Victorian character of the precinct.

• The large plane trees in the median strips along both sides of The Avenue.

How is it significant?

The Avenue Precinct, Windsor, is of local historical (HERCON Criteria A, C, & F) and aesthetic significance (HERCON Criteria B, D, & E).

Why is it significant?

The Avenue Precinct is of historical significance retaining remnants of one of the earliest and most elegant streets in the former City of Prahran (8.2 Middle-class suburbs and the suburban ideal). Development in the area generally derives from the surge of building construction which swept across South Yarra, Prahran and Windsor during the land boom which continued into the 1880s and beyond (3.3.1 Crown Land Sales, 3.3.3 Speculation and land boomers). The Precinct is unusual for the extent to which development proceeded unabated during the recession of the 1890s. The Precinct is of some additional interest for its associations with noted developer, Henry Cheel, and with St Matthew's Church.

The Avenue Precinct is of aesthetic significance for its collection of late Victorian buildings set on large garden allotments. Many of the villas on the eastern side of the street are unusually grand by local standards, reflecting the stature of their original occupants (8.4.1 Houses as a symbol of wealth status and fashion). This small sequence provides an intact example of the former character of The Avenue prior to the major flat and institutional redevelopment. Such consistently high levels of individual significance are rarely encountered within Council's Heritage Overlay areas. Areas of this level of intactness to their early state are becoming increasingly rare.

On the western side of the street, the Victorian villas that remain contribute to the character and significance of the area despite their generally lower level of intactness and architectural distinction. Although there is some non-contributory infill development on the western side of The Avenue, the streetscape’s legibility to its late-nineteenth century state has not been unduly compromised.

Mature plane trees along the both sides of The Avenue provide a garden setting for the group (8.7.1 Creating leafy suburbs). The established gardens and remaining examples of palisade fencing are also important streetscape attributes.

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Figure 2 MMBW Detail Plan No.966 and 1006, c1897. Source: State Library of Victoria Online Picture Collection.

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Figure 3 Map of recommended extension to The Avenue Heritage Overlay Precinct.

Existing HO148

Proposed extension to HO148

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Recommended Schedule of Gradings

Existing HO148 East side

Address

Description

Grading

42 The Avenue Single-storey symmetrical Victorian villa.

Significant

44 The Avenue Single-storey symmetrical Victorian villa.

Significant

46 The Avenue Single-storey asymmetrical Victorian villa.

Significant

48 The Avenue Double-storey Federation building (St Matthews vicarage)

Significant

50 The Avenue Single-storey asymmetrical Victorian villa.

Significant

52 The Avenue Single-storey asymmetrical Victorian villa.

Significant

54 The Avenue Single-storey symmetrical Victorian villa.

Significant

56 The Avenue Otira, single-storey asymmetrical Victorian villa.

Significant

Proposed extension to HO148 West side

Address

Description

Grading

31 The Avenue Single-storey asymmetrical Victorian villa.

Significant

33 The Avenue Single-storey symmetrical Victorian.

Significant

35 The Avenue Double-storey brick apartment block.

Non-contributory

37 The Avenue Double-storey townhouses.

Non-contributory

39 The Avenue Single-storey asymmetrical Victorian villa.

Significant

41 The Avenue Single-storey asymmetrical Victorian villa.

Significant

43 The Avenue Single-storey asymmetrical Victorian villa.

Significant

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45 The Avenue Single-storey asymmetrical Victorian villa.

Significant

47 The Avenue Heavily altered single-storey asymmetrical Victorian villa.

Contributory

49 The Avenue Double-storey block of flats.

Non-contributory

51 The Avenue Federation villa with upper-storey addition.

Significant

53 The Avenue Federation villa with double-storey rear addition.

Significant