Booriyalloak

STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE

Booriyalloak (formerly Rokeby)

Ballarat Road (corner of George Street)

This house has local significance as the home of the Hamilton bootmaker and hotel keeper, Isaac Routledge (1823-1902), who had a shop from 1872 on the site of 73 Gray Street, ([i]) the present office of Francis Punch, Architect. Booriyalloak, formerly known as Rokeby, in Crown Allotment 8, Section 97 was constructed for Routledge in 1890 on land he purchased in 1888. ([ii]) Later, Booriyalloak was owned and occupied in the 1920s by a Hamilton mayor, John Laidlaw, who in 1930 launched the Mayor's Unemployment Relief, an attempt to deal with the impact of the Great Depression. ([iii])

The house is remarkably simple for its time of construction and suggests a much earlier phase of domestic architecture in its detailing. It has been altered especially about the verandah and is in poor condition. Part of the property has been converted to a caravan park. Remnants of the original garden survive including important Washingtonia robusta, Washington or Mexican palms.