HOPE PARK

Hope Park (built 1867), at 12 Weir Court, Kangaroo Flat, was built in 1867 for Scottish architect David Weir. The dwelling is set in a deep allotment and comprises an original L-shaped stone house setback from the road (Weir Court). The house has a steeply pitched roof clad in Marseilles-pattern tiling with ridge capping, prominent gables to its east and north elevations, a timber-framed canted bay window with a half pyramidal tiled roof over in the east gable, and a diagonally angled central entry porch. The north gabled wing is coupled to another canted timber bay and a non-original stone-walled rear wing. The house also has a square plan terrace filling in its basic L-shape, with an angled entry step; the terrace is built up with a stone wall laid in a random pattern. The grounds, although significantly reduced and developed, feature a number of plantings including two cypress pines and two tall palms located to the north-east and south-west sides of the dwelling respectively. 

Hope Park (built 1867), at 12 Weir Court, Kangaroo Flat, is of local historical and aesthetic/architectural significance. 

The picturesque dwelling Hope Park, constructed in 1867 of stone quarried on site and designed and built by Scottish architect David Weir, is historically important (Criterion A). It is an early agricultural property in the north-west of Kangaroo Flat, and significant as one of the few surviving properties dating to the early years of settlement in this area of the expanding suburb. The property was associated with the local Guidice family for some 90 years. 

Hope Park, in the cottage orné-style, is also of aesthetic/architectural significance (Criterion E) and an unusual style of dwelling in the Marong and broader municipal context (Criterion B). The picturesque cottage orné-style, introduced in Australia from the 1830s, was generally associated with settlers of Scottish descent, as occurred here. The property demonstrates many of the key characteristics of the cottage orné-style, including an L-shaped plan, steeply pitched roofs, conspicuous gabling and bargeboards, stone or masonry drip-mouldings, prominent chimneys, canted bay windows in the projecting wings, and addressing the site diagonally rather than frontally. The property is additionally prominent in its immediate context, with the high gabled wings making it one of the taller buildings in the surrounding modern suburban development, and visible in views from the roads to the north and west. The mature cypress pines and palm trees, on the north-east and south-west sides of the dwelling respectively, also have a high degree of visibility and enhance the presentation of the property.