Osborne house

History:

The first Collingwood Rate Book, for 1864, lists John R Osborne, an accountant, as the owner of a brick house valued at ₤37. Osborne remained the owner and occupier of the house until 1869, when ownership passed to Mary Watson.

Description:

The house at 13 Clarke Street, Abbotsford, is a simple, double-fronted brick villa with a hipped slate roof. The detached house is set back from the street, and has walls of Hawthorn Flemish bond brickwork with a bluestone plinth. The brickwork appears to have been recently repointed. The symmetrical street facade has a central four-panelled door flanked by double-hung sash windows. It has a concave-profile corrugated iron verandah supported on timber posts. The brick chimneys have rendered moulded caps.

To the rear on the west side of the house is a timber single-storey building with an attic, clad in weatherboard with a gabled corrugated iron roof, which also appears to date from the 19th century and may pre-date the main house.

The timber picket fence is not original.

Significance:

The house at 13 Clarke Street is of local architectural significance. Architecturally, the house is a substantially intact example of a relatively austere Victorian villa, which is a remnant of the middle class villas which were erected close to the Yarra River in the pre-Boom period. Being freestanding on a comparatively large block it is one of a small number of such dwellings within the municipality.

Group

Residential buildings (private)

Category

House