263 Highett Street

History:

The house at 263 Highett Street was built in 1893. The first owner was Thomas Colbert, a grocer, who already owned a 4 room wooden house at No. 267. The first occupiers of No. 263 were Walter and Mary Letchford. Daniel Egan, a labourer who had occupied No. 267 since 1893, was the occupant of No. 263 from 1894 until at least 1910.

Description:

The house at 263 Highett Street is a single-storey double-fronted symmetrical polychromatic brick terrace. Italianate in style, it has brown brick walls with cream and red window dressings, string courses and diaper work. There is a convex profiled corrugated-iron clad verandah between two wing walls with rendered copings and vermiculated consoles. There is no balcony. The verandah has a cast iron lacework frieze and is supported on cast iron columns. The parapet has polychromatic brick panelling with an unpainted rendered copings, cornice, and a central segmental pediment flanked by scrolls and decorated with swags. The urns at each corner of the parapet are missing. Windows are timber-framed double-hung sashes. There are two polychromatic chimneys with rendered moulded caps.

The brickwork colours and patterning, and the parapet match those on the adjacent double storey house at 261 Highett Street (see separate datasheet). Both houses have timber and woven wire front fences.

Significance:

The house at 263 Highett Street, Richmond, is of local architectural significance. It is a particularly elaborate example of polychromatic brickwork. The house is particularly intact, retaining its original unpainted rendered parapet dressings. The house forms an interesting and significant pair with No. 261, a single-fronted two-storey composition of the same elements, with many very similar or identical details.

Group

Residential buildings (private)

Category

House