Christian College (Junior School)

A Listed - State Significance

The building complex and site at 39-47 Broughton Drive is aesthetically significant at a STATE level. It demonstrates original design qualities of the interwar Georgian Revival style. These qualities include the three, two storey, unpainted dark brick, building pavilions with hipped tiled roofs which are linked by flat roofed two storey corridors. Other intact qualities include the courtyards between the pavilions,unpainted red brick chimneys, broken segmentally arched door surround supported by elaborate consoles with decorative elements within, general symmetry, rendered stringcourses, narrow eaves and regularly situated timber framed double hung twelve paned windows, rear two storey and single storey red brick wings and outbuildings with hipped galvanised corrugated roofs and the horizontal weatherboard outbuilding with a hipped roof, wide eaves and exposed rafters. The sizeable grounds (although considerably subdivided in recent years), including the Norfolk pine tree, palm trees, cypress trees and brick pillar gateway, make a substantial contribution to the aesthetic significance of the place.

The building complex and site at 39-47 Broughton Drive are historically significant at a STATE level. They are associated with the development of Orphanage Asylums and Children's Homes in Victoria from 1855, and more particularly, with the development of a Children's Home in the 1930s which was largely funded by several non-Government organisations throughout Geelong and district. The building complex is also associated with Laird and Buchan, architects.

The building complex and site at 39-47 Broughton Drive is socially significant at a REGIONAL level. While no longer serving its original purpose, it is highly valued and still recognised by the community of the Geelong region as a former home for children and presently as a Christian school.

Overall, the building complex and site at 39-47 Broughton Drive is of STATE significance.

It is highly recommended that a Conservation Management Plan be carried out on the property.

REFERENCE

1. D. & C. Jaggs, Advancing This Good Work: A History of Glastonbury Child and Family Services, Adams Printers, Geelong, 1988.

2. See Record Sheet for the former Protestant Orphan Asylum and Common School, Fyansford.

3. D. Rowe, 'Building a National Image: The Architecture of John Smith Murdoch, Australia's First Commonwealth Government Architect', PhD (Architecture) Thesis, Deakin University, Geelong, 1997.

4. City of Greater Geelong Planning Permits 601/2002 and 1465/2002.

Group

Education

Category

Other - Education