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New Police Station

Location

13 Thompson St HAMILTON, Southern Grampians Shire

File Number

HAMDS030

Level

Stage 2 study complete

[1/1]
26491 New Police Station

Statement of Significance

SIGNIFICANCE: »Key building in the Police complex. Complements the neighbouring State Public Offices.

STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE

New Police Station
13 Thompson St

This building has regional significance as an important component of the Hamilton police complex and for its historical associations with the district's police establishment which pre dated the 1850 plan for a Grange township (the earlier name for Hamilton). As early as November 1840 La Trobe recommended the appointment of a district Police Magistrate supported by police constables based on the Grange. ([i])

The site of the police station in Thompson Street is of considerable archaeological significance as it was the location in the 1840s of a hut erected for the Police Magistrate with barracks for a detachment of mounted police. ([ii]) The police station which was replaced by the existing was built for the Public Works Department in 1878 by J A Wood for 428 pounds and nineteen shillings. ([iii]) The present building dates from either in the late 1940s or the early 1950s and may have been designed by Percy Everett who was the chief architect of the PWD. It is a typical design for the time using conventional cream bricks, timber windows, terra cotta tiles and a traditionalism notwithstanding its attempt to be modern. It is significantly intact and is in excellent condition.

Also part of the significance is the old red brick building, apparently a former lock-up adjacent to the Police Station.

[i] Garden, D, Hamilton, p 18.

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Argus, 7 September 1878, 10 September 1878.

Group