Purfleet Cottages

History:

The 1858 Hodgkinson map shows a terraced row on this site. In 1872 Thomas Pearson owned 8 wooden houses on this site, and in the following year he built Purfleet Cottages, which consisted of twelve or thirteen similar units in brick.

Pearson retained possession until 1874, when the ownership passed to John O'Connor, By 1888, while O'Connor was owner, the tenants included a mason, labourers, a moulder, a chimney sweep, carters, a driver, a dealer and a French polisher.

Description:

Purfleet Cottages is a single-storey Victorian brick residential terrace. It formerly comprised twelve or thirteen identical attached houses; now only eight remain. The houses are extremely modest, and are built directly on the property line and have no verandahs. The facade of each house has a front door and single timber-framed double-hung sash window with a bluestone sill. There is a single transverse gabled corrugated iron roof, penetrated by brick chimneys with unpainted rendered moulded caps and terracotta chimney pots.

No. 39 is the only house to retain its original tuck pointed red face brick facade and unpainted bluestone plinth. The front walls of Nos. 35 and 37 have been extended upwards to form a parapet; these two houses also have altered door and window openings.

Part of a nameplate, of which the remaining text reads PURF.COTT.187, remains on the facade of Nos. 37 and 39, formerly the centre pair of the development.

Significance:

Purfleet Cottages, 33-47 Bedford Street, Collingwood, is of local architectural significance.
Although the appearance of the terrace has been marred by the painting of all but one of the red face brick facades and the unsympathetic alterations to Nos. 35 and 37 , the row remains unusual in its form, simple design, and location in an area almost fully occupied by industrial buildings.

Group

Residential buildings (private)

Category

Cottage