26 Royal Crescent, ARMADALE

What is significant?

Constructed on land purchased at the Crown Land sales of May 1850, the Armadale Precinct developed as part of the broad surge of development through Prahran, Malvern and the inner suburbs more generally through the 1880s. The earliest development dates from the 1860s and 1870s and a number of key buildings from this period survive. The construction of the railway through Armadale to Oakley disrupted the original subdivision to create an irregular group of streets, subsequently developed with polite villas and cottages through the 1880s and with more substantial dwellings through the early twentieth century to produce a handsome and expansive suburban environment. The Toorak Railway Station, which stimulated development of the area and the retail group in Beatty Avenue, constructed to service it, are significant elements. The flats Clendon and Clendon Corner are not typical of built form in the area but are important buildings in their own rights.

Elements which contribute to the significance of the precinct vary from street to street but include:

. The high degree of intactness of the area to its c1930 state arising from the low proportion of later infill;

. The intactness of individual buildings to their original states. Dwellings typically survive with their presentation to the street largely unaltered retaining facades, verandahs and decorative detailing intact;

. The consistent single-storey height and modest scale of the residential built form; largely derived from the prevalence of the freestanding single-storey villas and modest semi-detached pairs on generous allotments.

. The consistent face brick, timber or render materiality and gabled or hipped roofscapes with chimneys and roofs in slate or terracotta tiles;

. The landscaped character of the area arising from mature street plantings in conjunction with open, landscaped front and side setbacks to individual properties;

. Low and permeable front fences in most sections of the precinct;

. Road alignments and allotment patterns resulting from nineteenth and early twentieth century subdivisions;

. The general absence of vehicle accommodation in front setbacks, particularly in some areas to the east of the Armadale Primary School such as Glassford Street and in more modest streets such as Watson and Eileen Streets;

. The Railway Station and shops in Beatty Avenue and their relationship to nearby residential stock.

. Early stables to the rear of dwellings at 28 Northcote Road and 64 Rose Street.

. Mid-twentieth century flats,ClendonandClendon Cornerin Clendon Road are atypical elements within this precinct but remain significant buildings in their own rights.

How is it significant?

The Armadale Precinct, Armadale is of local, social, historical and aesthetic significance.

Why is it significant?

The Armadale Precinct is aesthetically significant as an unusual surviving urban landscape. It is architecturally significant as an intact collection of late nineteenth and early twentieth century buildings. Buildings adopt a range of architectural expressions at a variety of scales ranging from cottages or other modest forms of housing on small blocks to polite suburban villas to very grand buildings such as the station and retail groups in Beatty Avenue. A small number of, primarily Edwardian, dwellings are of a scale and architectural distinction usually associated with Mansions. The area is highly intact to its c.1930 state with few modern interventions and the greater part of its building stock demonstrates a high level of integrity to its original form. Areas of this intactness and integrity are becoming increasingly rare.

The Armadale Precinct is of historical significance for the manner in which it illustrates the early development of the Municipality. It retains associations with Landboomer, and later Premier, James Munro and with local developers such as Robert Sutherland and Michael Glassford(3.3.3 Speculators and Landboomers). The area developed in two distinct and legible phases which allow the boom of the 1880s (8.2.1Middle-class suburbs and the suburban ideal) the recession of the early 1890s and the recovery in the early twentieth century (3.3.5 Recovery and infill 1900-1940) to be understood. In addition, its varied street layouts and relationship with the railway illustrates thead hocnature of nineteenth century planning (3.3.4 Uncontrolled and unplanned development). The area survives as a snapshot of local development to c.1930.

The Armadale Precinct is of social significance for the extent to which it illustrates the introduction of new subdivisional typologies which added to the range of choices for family living. The development of suburbs around transport nodes (8.2.1Middle-class suburbs and the suburban ideal)fundamentally altered living and working patterns. The Railway Station in Beatty Avenue (4.4.2.Developing state railway systems in the late nineteenth century) and the local shopping strip (7.1 Serving local communities) were essential to this new form of habitation.

Group

Residential buildings (private)

Category

House