CANTERBURY AMBULANCE STATION

Location

61 Canterbury Road CANTERBURY, BOROONDARA CITY

Level

Included in Heritage Overlay

Statement of Significance

What is Significant?

The Canterbury Ambulance Station at 61 Canterbury Road, Canterbury, is significant. It was built for the Victorian Civil Ambulance Service (VCAS) in 1931 by builder S.L. Watsford.

It is a small, cubical clinker brick building with a tiled hipped roof set behind low front and side parapets. The centre bay is expressed as a shallow breakfront emphasised by a higher parapet. The facade is ornamented with red brick dressings to openings and bas-relief ornament over the vehicular entrance and windows. Roundels above the windows read 'Nulla Vestigia Retrorsum' (No going back), which was the motto of St John Ambulance and VCAS.

The rear extension is not significant.

How is it significant?

The Canterbury Ambulance Station is of local historical and representative significance and rarity value to the City of Boroondara.

Why is it significant?

The Canterbury Ambulance Station is of historical significance for demonstrating the early history of the Victorian Civil Ambulance Service (VCAS) and its interwar expansion plans. VCAS was created in 1914 as a continuation of the not-for-profit ambulance services provided by St John's Ambulance in Melbourne from 1893, and was intended to differentiate the ambulance service from St John's other services. In 1925, VCAS was finally making a small profit and decided to build eight new ambulance stations in the 'outer suburbs'. They did not raise the necessary funds until the 1930s, and the first station constructed was the Canterbury Ambulance Station in 1931. It served the cities of Camberwell, Hawthorn, Kew, Box Hill and Blackburn-Mitcham. VCAS only managed to build one more of the planned eight stations, for Footscray in 1933 (demolished). (Criterion A)

The Canterbury Ambulance station is rare as the only known interwar ambulance station in the Melbourne metropolitan area. (Criterion B)

The Canterbury Ambulance Station is of architectural significance as a representative interwar community building in the Stripped Classical style. (Criterion D)

Group

Health Services

Category

Ambulance Station