Back to search results » Back to search page »   Print 

HCV West Newport Estate Precinct

Location

Challis Street (part) and Champion Road (part) and Croker Street (part) and Fowler Crescent and Market Street (part) and Melrose Street (part) NEWPORT, Hobsons Bay City

Level

Included in Heritage Overlay

Statement of Significance

What is Significant?

The Housing Commission of Victoria (HCV) West Newport Estate Residential Heritage Precinct, designed and constructed by the HCV between 1945 and 1960 and comprises all land in HO16 and is generally bounded by Challis Street, Croker Street, Market Street and Melrose Street, Newport.

How is it Significant?

The HCV West Newport Estate Residential Heritage Precinct is of local historic and aesthetic significance to the City of Hobsons Bay.

Why is it Significant?

Historically, it is significant for its strong associations with the Housing Commission of Victoria as one of a small number of housing estates built in Victoria during the WW2 period and is notable as the first HCV estate to use the Fowler prefabricated concrete products from the Holmesglen factory, which symbolised a change in direction of the HCV from slum reclamation to provide low-cost mass-produced housing on green fields sites. (AHC criteria A4, B2 and H1)

Aesthetically, it is significant as one of the best-preserved early HCV estates in the City. It is notable for its strong visual homogeneity, which is strongly evocative of the construction period and for the skill of its town planning, using curving streets around a central park off a main road. (AHC criteria D2 and F1)

On this basis, the following properties and other elements contribute to the significance of the precinct:

- 16-32 Challis Street (does not include 32a Challis Street).

- 102, 104, 103-117 and 124 Champion Road

- 11-29 Croker Street

- 2-28 Fowler Crescent

- 140-154 Market Street

- 21-23 Melrose Street

- Bluestone and concrete kerb and channeling and concrete road construction.

- Central park and public realm landscaping including mature Ash trees.

Group

Residential buildings (private)

Category

Residential Precinct