HO107 - House, 285 Nerowie Road, Parwan

The house at No. 285 Nerowie Road Parwan, is architecturally significant at a LOCAL level (AHC D.2). Although relocated, it demonstrates original design qualities of a Late Victorian Picturesque style. These qualities include the steeply pitched gable roof forms clad in corrugated sheet metal, modest eaves and the wide encircling verandah clad in lapped galvanised corrugated steel sheeting. Other intact or appropriate qualities include the symmetrical composition, single storey height, horizontal timber weatherboard wall cladding, brick chimney (albeit reconstructed), timber framed double hung windows, timber framed doorway, and the timber finials and pendants in the gable ends.

The house at No. 285 Nerowie Road Parwan is historically significant at the LOCAL level (AHC B2, H1). It was built c.1893 by Stephen John Staughton, President of the Shire of Bacchus Marsh, and third generation of the Staughton pastoral family, which, with the Clarkes and the Chirnsides, were the dominant landholders in north-western Port Phillip region in the nineteenth century. It was built in the final era of pastoral dominance, when political sentiment and and economic forces combined to 'break up' huge pastoral estates in favour of 'closer settlement', or farming of the former grazing lands. Together with the other major Staughton properties (Exford, Eynesbury and Staughton Vale), Nerowie was sold by the family in the early twentieth century. The relocation of this house away from the brick section of the Nerowie homestead, onto another part of the property, literally demonstrates the 'break up' of this pastoral estate. With Nerowie it is a remaining link with Stephen George Staughton and his demolished mansion, Brooklyn.

Overall, the house at No. 285 Nerowie Road Parwan is of LOCAL significance.

Group

Farming and Grazing

Category

Farm