SHOPS

The pair of commercial buildings at 12 Bair Street, Leongatha, built in 1894, are significant. These pair of wide commercial buildings have features including a decorative rendered parapet with a central triangular pediment surmounted on an acroterion. There is also decorative solid plaster mouldings on the parapet featuring four projecting piers, cornices with dentils, and panels with raised moulds and bosses. The reset entrances are covered with a straight verandah across both buildings, although this verandah is not original.

Non-original alterations and additions, other than those specified above, are not of heritage significance.

The commercial shops at 12 Bair Street, Leongatha are of historic and aesthetic significance for the South Gippsland Shire. 

Historically, the pair of shops are among the oldest extant shops in South Gippsland Shire and were built for Robert Bair. It is believed that these buildings were the third significant commercial building built in Bair Street after the Bair’s Otago Hotel and the former Thomas Ridgway store (see LE-BA-016 and LE-BA-018). This pair of buildings demonstrate the early commercial development of Leongatha after the opening of the South Eastern Railway. It also reflects the importance of commercial enterprises for Leongatha and the South Gippsland Shire. (Criterion A)

These buildings are aesthetically significant as they are a superior and rare example of Victorian single storey shops constructed of brick. They are notable for their elaborate parapet and contribute to the aesthetic and historical character of Bair Street and Leongatha. (Criterion E)