Residence

The house at 34 Thomson Street is aesthetically significant at a LOCAL level. A highly intact house from the street frontage, it demonstrates original design features of the interwar Californian Bungalow style. These qualities include the a major gable roof form, together with a rear gable roof that traverses the site, a minor gable that projects towards the street frontage, and a return flat-roofed verandah that projects to the front and the north. Other intact qualities include the weatherboard wall cladding, galvanised corrugated iron roof cladding, tall corbelled red brick chimney with a terra cotta pot, wide eaves, timber framed double hung windows (in a horizontal bank of four and as a projecting bay), squat and round, tapered, concrete Doric verandah columns, brick verandah piers with rendered concrete cappings, solid brick balustrades with curved concrete cappings, window leadlighting, gable brackets and infill (shingling, joinery, panelling and battening). The brick and wire fence, together with the substantial garden and palm tree, contribute to the significance of the place. The house also makes a significant contribution to this section of the predominantly Federation and interwar residential streetscape.

The house at 34 Thomson Street is historically significant at a LOCAL level. It is associated with the Belmont Height Estate subdivision of 1913, and with the Hirst family, local woollen manufacturers.

Overall, the house at 34 Thomson Street is of LOCAL significance.

REFERENCE

1. Shire of South Barwon Rate Books, 1923-24, 1924-25, 1925-26, 1926-27, 1927-28, 1928-29.

2. Sands and McDougall's Directory of Victoria, 1934, 1957, 1972.

3. Belmont Heights Estate Subdivision plan, 6 December, 1913, Geelong Historical Records Centre.

4. Drainage Plans and Inspector's Reports, 1927, Barwon Water Profis system.

Group

Residential buildings (private)

Category

House