Aberdeen Street Precinct

What is significant?

The Aberdeen Road Heritage Overlay area developed quickly from c.1887, as part of the broad surge of development through Prahran during the economic boom. The small group of modest workers' houses at 70-80 Aberdeen Road (north side) and 73-81 Aberdeen Road (south side), were constructed in an unplanned manner around a narrow cul de sac before 1992. All of the dwellings from the original development survive and the precinct remains remarkably intact to its late nineteenth century state.

How is it significant?

The Aberdeen Road Precinct is of aesthetic, architectural and historical significance at a local level.

Why is it significant?

The Aberdeen Road Precinct is aesthetically significant as an unusual surviving urban landscape. This is a product of the modest scale of its buildings and allotments, the character of its dwellings, in particular the absence of front setbacks, and the density and irregularity of the planning of the narrow cul de sac. Areas of this form and intactness are becoming increasingly rare as early dwellings are demolished and their blocks consolidated for redevelopment. The area contains no substantial modern interventions and its building stock demonstrates a high level of integrity to its original form.

The Aberdeen Road Precinct is architecturally significant as an intact collection of late nineteenth century buildings. It is comprised consistently of cottages or other modest forms of housing on very small blocks. Some of the buildings in the group, most notably the timber cottages to the south side of the street are of high individual significance for their rarity and their unusual design, in particular, their verandahs and ornamental pediments.

The Aberdeen Road area is historical of significance for the manner in which it illustrates the nature of early development in the Municipality. Through its scale and density, the precinct demonstrates the modest standards of accommodation and amenity enjoyed by early residents of Prahran. The unusual siting of the individual dwellings and their layout around a narrow cul de sac underscores the intense, unplanned and uncontrolled nature of subdivision and development during the economic boom of the 1880s. Areas of this type were once common through this section of the Municipality but many were substantially removed during the slum clearance interventions of the 1960s and 1970s.

Thematic Context
8.5.1 'Struggletown' -working class housing in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Gradings
The following gradings were assigned as part of the City of Prahran Conservation Review in 1993. The descriptions were prepared by the current author in 2008.

North Side
73/75 Aberdeen RoadVictorian semi-detached pairB
77/79 Aberdeen RoadVictorian semi-detached pairB
81 Aberdeen RoadVictorian cottageB

South Side
70 Aberdeen RoadVictorian timber cottageA2
72 Aberdeen RoadVictorian timber cottageA2
74 Aberdeen RoadVictorian timber cottageA2
76 Aberdeen RoadVictorian timber cottageA2
78 Aberdeen RoadVictorian timber cottageA2
80 Aberdeen RoadVictorian timber cottageA2
82 Aberdeen RoadVictorian villaB

Group

Residential buildings (private)

Category

Residential Precinct