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Fishermen's Flat

Location

Wharf Street and Bridge Street and Beach Street and Bay Street QUEENSCLIFF, QUEENSCLIFFE BOROUGH

Level

Included in Heritage Overlay

[1/24]
Borough of Queenscliffe
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4.5.1_View from St. George's
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4.5.1_Bridge Street looking
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4.5.1_10 Bay Street
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4.5.1_15 Beach Street
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4.5.1_11 Beach Street
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4.5.1_12 Beach Street
[8/24]
4.5.1_16 Beach Street
[9/24]
4.5.1_16 Bridge Street
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4.5.1_18 Bay Street
[11/24]
4.5.1_18 Bridge Street
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4.5.1_2 Beach Street
[13/24]
4.5.1_22 Bay Street
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4.5.1_22 Bridge Street.
[15/24]
4.5.1_24 Bay Street.
[16/24]
4.5.1_24 Bridge Street.
[17/24]
4.5.1_27 Beach Street
[18/24]
4.5.1_32 Beach Street.
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4.5.1_34 Beach Street
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4.5.1_35 Beach Street
[21/24]
View over Fishermen's Flat
[22/24]
22 Bay Street
[23/24]
2 Beach Street
[24/24]
12 Beach Street

Statement of Significance

Statement of Significance as recorded under the Queenscliff Heritage Study 2009

What is significant?

The Fisherman's Flat precinct is significant for its residential building stock, comprising modest fishermen's residences ranging in date from the 1860s and 1870s through to the c.1940s, as well as for its relatively intact subdivision pattern.

Specific significant and contributory buildings within the precinct are identified in the attached schedule.

How is it significant?

This precinct is of historical and aesthetic significance to the Borough of Queenscliffe.

Why is it significant?

The Fishermen's Flat Precinct is historically important as a defined area of the Queenscliff township specifically reserved by the Crown in the 1850s for development as fishermen's residences. Until the 1950s the allotments were all leased from the Crown Lands Department. The largely intact subdivisional layouts date back to 1856 when the Department surveyed the area and - with its dual frontage arrangements - is distinct from the layout of the broader township. The precinct clearly demonstrates the physical and social separation that existed in the nineteenth century between the fishing community and other residents and visitors to Queenscliff and its siting, on low-lying land near the harbour, is also demonstrative of this divide. Despite modifications, many of the fishermen's residences are still broadly intact externally and though modest in their form and fabric, provide a valuable insight into the lives of a community of great importance in the history of the township of Queenscliffe and the Borough as a whole.

The Fishermen's Flat precinct is of significance for its strong historical association with the fishing community in Queenscliff.

While the buildings themselves are simple and modest with no architectural pretension, the precinct as a whole has a particular visual quality that derives from its wide streets, unusual subdivisional pattern, the consistency of scale, form, siting and materials, and the simplicity of detailing of its building stock. The area retains a strong sense of cohesion from the scale and massing of the buildings as well as in the general simplicity of form and detail.

Group

Residential buildings (private)

Fishermen's Flat

Location

Level

Statement of Significance

Group

Category