Farey Brothers' Bakery (former)

The former Farey Brothers' Bakery at 20-26 Liddiard Street, Hawthorn, is significant. It was constructed in 1915 to a design by architect F.G. Leslie Allen for brothers William Alfred, James Harold and Leslie Francis Farey. The Liddiard Street buildings housed a wholesale bakery, with goods sold through the brothers' retail outlets on Burke Road, Glenferrie Road, and Burwood Road, Hawthorn. The site was used as a bakery until 1970, and at the end of that decade it was converted to offices and workshops.

The site holds a complex of single and double-storey Free Style red brick buildings with cement dressings and tiled gabled roofs. Three principle volumes survive: a two-storey gable-fronted wing with a large arched carriageway through it; a wider section with a transverse gable roof on the west side but set back somewhat from the street and distinguished by a massive double chimney; and a plain, single-storey, gable-fronted building adjoining it on the west side with the same front setback. There is a remnant front wall to the site which was once part of a single-storey building with a low transverse gable roof.

The works associated with the 1979 office conversion are not significant.

How is it significant?

The former Farey Brothers' Bakery is of local historical and aesthetic significance to the City of Boroondara.

Why is it significant?

The Farey Brothers' Bakery is historically significant as one of the small number of pre-WWII industrial buildings to survive in Boroondara. While the former cities of Camberwell and Kew tried to exclude most industry from their boundaries, Hawthorn was the centre of manufacturing in Boroondara for over a century, beginning in the 1840s and '50s with noxious trades, claypits and brickyards. (Criterion A)

The Farey Brothers' Bakery is a very skilful industrial building. Located off the commercial spine of Glenferrie Road, on a narrow residential street, it has been designed in such a way with variety in massing and details, so that it forms a focal point for the street instead of overwhelming the single-storey villas that surround it. The Bakery complex is a fine example of the Federation Free Style, expressed as two-storey architecturally expressed volumes flanked by single-storey utilitarian bakehouse buildings. The two-storey sections are expressed with a decorative front gable terminating in a shouldered arch, with cement detail suggesting a Baroque influence. The wide arch of the carriageway below is repeated in an arch at the base of the massive double chimneys, which are joined at the top with a bold cornice. (Criterion E)

Group

Commercial

Category

Other - Commercial