Back to search results » Back to search page »

INFANT BUILDING, MOONEE PONDS WEST PRIMARY SCHOOL No.2901

Other Name

Review

Location

132 EGLINTON STREET, MOONEE PONDS, MOONEE VALLEY CITY

Level

Included in Heritage Overlay

[1/2]
Infants' School, Moonee Ponds
[2/2]
Infants' School

Statement of Significance

This place is included on the Victorian Heritage Register (H1321) with the following statement of significance:

The Moonee Ponds West Primary School opened on 14 February 1888. In 1911 two blocks adjoining the school were acquired as the site for a new, detached infant school building. As a result of the Fink Commission (1899) which had recommended the construction of independent infant schools in Victoria, 53 infant buildings were constructed between 1901 and 1939. The Moonee Ponds West example is in the pavilion style, an Edwardian design adopted by the Public Works Department for infant buildings constructed between 1907 and 1915. Designed by Public Works architect George William Watson (1850-1915), the Moonee Ponds West infant building opened in June 1913.

The infant building at the Moonee Ponds West Primary School is of architectural and historical importance to the State of Victoria.

The infant building at the Moonee Ponds West State School is architecturally and historically important as an intact, representative example of the pavilion style building which was designed for preparatory grade children during the Edwardian years. The interior is significant for retaining the original floor plan and layout of seven classrooms, cloak room, office and large central hall. The decorative elements of the hall interior are particularly noteworthy; the west, east and south elevations feature stained glass windows depicting rosellas, galahs, magpies and kookaburras, and the ceiling has a polished timber hammer beam roof studded with decorative, square-shaped ventilator openings. Of further historical interest is the large, polished timber honour board on the north wall commemorating past students who served in the Great War 1914-1919. The exterior is important for the same degree of intactness, as it retains all the Edwardian elements of the building's pavilion design, notably the octagonal-plan domed ventilators which prominently feature in the decorative massing of the roofscape.

The Moonee Ponds West infant building is architecturally and historically important for its associations with its designer, George William Watson, chief Public Works architect between the years 1910-1915.

Group