Civic and Community Precinct

What is Significant

The Civic and Community Precinct encompasses Camberwell's Town Hall; Boroondara municipaladministration buildings; the Roman Catholic, Anglican and Methodist churches with their attendant housing and halls; Camberwell State School and Our Lady's Catholic parish school; and block of publictoilets. These buildings are set in or associated with substantial landholdings including public gardens, school playing grounds, gardens around clerical housing, a public bowling green and tennis courts attached to the Anglican Church. The street boundaries are Burke Road (west side), Inglesby Road (south side) and Camberwell Road (northeast side); the area is bisected from east to west by Reserve Road.

As the starting point of the Junction's commercial development and the city's civic development, this triangle of land has great historical significance to the City and, in its individual built components and their setting, aesthetic importance. Considered as a building group they are linked by their detached siting and civic/public scale and use (G Butler, Camberwell Conservation Study, 1991 and Lovell Chen 2008).

Specific buildings which contribute to the significance of the precinct are as follows:

Our Lady of Victories Catholic Church

Our Lady of Victories Catholic School

Our Lady of Victories Presbytery

St John's Presbytery

Public toilet

Camberwell Primary School

Camberwell Uniting Church

Former Wesleyan Manse

Camberwell Civic Centre

Camberwell Town Hall

Camberwell Municipal Offices

In addition to the buildings the open landscape and mature plantings provide an appropriate and important setting.

The Civic and Community Precinct is historically, aesthetically and socially significant to the City of Boroondara

The Civic and Community Precinct is of major historical importance in the association of the original reserved land and related buildings with the early development and later growth of the former City of Camberwell. The precinct contains civic buildings, schools and churches all of which have been important in the growth and development of Camberwell and continue to be so in the new City of Boroondara. The precinct is of social significance as the focus of contemporary local governance and in continuing to play a significant role in the provision of places of education and worship for the local community. The civic hall in particular has been and continues to be a place used by the community for events, functions, and related activities. Aesthetically, the precinct contains buildings of a generally high level of individual significance, which both individually and as a group are of particular distinction within the local context. Their aesthetic significance is enhanced by their open setting and the associated landscape and mature plantings.

Group

Community Facilities

Category

Other - Community Facilities