CLOYNE

Cloyne was built for Sir John Madden in the prestigious bay-side suburb of St Kilda in 1887, at the height of the Melbourne land boom. It was named for Madden's birthplace in County Cork, Ireland. This part of St Kilda has many fine institutional buildings, especially churches, and several fine mansions, which take advantage of the garden setting of Alma Park. Madden was a prominent Melbourne barrister, who became Chief Justice in 1893 and Lieutenant-Governor in 1899. He and Lady Madden lived at Cloyne until 1912, when they moved to the Cliveden Mansions in East Melbourne, which had been converted to flats in 1910. Since then Cloyne has been used as a boarding house, a funeral parlour, a yoga school and a Salvation Army hostel.

Cloyne is a thirty room two storey stuccoed brick mansion in a Victorian Italianate style. The two main facades are both asymmetrical. The street front is relatively unadorned, as is the entrance front at the side. The imposing Doric porte-cochère, with heavily rusticated Doric pillars, is surmounted by a balustraded balcony featuring large spherical decorative elements at the corners. The main facade faces Alma Park and has a two storey cast iron verandah ending at a projecting two storey rectangular bay at one end. The wide eaves are supported by a row of prominent consoles alternating with patera mouldings. The principal rooms, the drawing room, dining room and library, open off a large central stair hall, and all face the park. These rooms have intact fireplaces, cornices and ceiling roses. The ballroom with a parquet floor and orchestra gallery is an unusual surviving feature. The L-shaped service wing is also unusual.

How is it significant?

Cloyne at 12 Chapel Street St Kilda is of architectural and historical significance to the State of Victoria.

Why is it significant?

Cloyne is of architectural interest as a fine example of a Melbourne suburban mansion of the 1880s boom. The imposing scale and design of the mansion, with its ballroom and gallery, reflect the wealth and prominence of Sir John Madden in the social and cultural life of Melbourne. It is also significant as one of a group of important buildings erected in the nineteenth century on this side of Chapel Street adjacent to Alma Park.

St Kilda is of historical significance for its association with Sir John Madden, who was prominent in Victorian politics in the late nineteenth century.

[Online Data Upgrade Project 2004]

Group

Residential buildings (private)

Category

Mansion