Claremont

'Claremont" erected 1857-58 for William Blair, is the most refined architectural design of Andrew McWilliams, an Irish engineering/architect who was most engage as a municipal surveyor during his long career in the Geelong region. The villa is a most distinguished Italianate style design and one of the most notable of the houses constructed in the 1850's in Geelong. The building has important historical associations, firstly with CJ Denny's the prominent Geelong wool broker who acquired the house in 1876, and then with the Gray family who have occupied the house since 1901.

RECOMMENDATIONS: PROTECTIVE MEASURES

Historic Buildings Council Register

Geelong Regional Commission Register.

REFERENCES

National Trust of Australia (Victoria) File No 3029.

Geelong Advertiser - 27th March, 1859, tender notice.

Brownhill, W.R. - The History of Geelong and Corio Bay, Wilke and Co, Melbourne, 1955, p121.

Huddle, Lorraine - "Architects in Geelong in the 1840's and 1850's, Humanities Research Report, Department of Architecture, University of Melbourne, 1979, Vol 1, pp 79-84, Vol 2 p. 57, Illustrations of original buildings and fence.

Strahan, Frank - 'Dennys, Charles John (1818-1898) - Australian Dictionary of Biography', Vol 4, Pike Douglas (Ed), Melbourne University Press, 1972, pp 54-55.

Group

Residential buildings (private)

Category

House