655-661 Burwood Road

1. Historically significant as, one of the oldest hardware retail facilities in Melbourne and a link with the mixed use activities of nineteenth and early twentieth centure Hawthorn, particularly in Burwood Road.

2. Architecturally significant for the unusual and remarkably intact shopfronts, and th early commercial interior.

3. Illustrative of the industrial changes which led to the development of hardware stores from ironmongers.

HO260 Auburn Village Precinct, Hawthorn

Reference - Auburn Village Heritage Study Heritage Guidelines (2005)

The Auburn Village Precinct, Hawthorn, is an area of cultural heritage significance for the following reasons:

- The precinct is a representative example of a major commercial precinct of late 19th and early 20th century.

- The precinct demonstrates the important influence of railways by encouraging the development of commercial centres around stations, and illustrates the speculative development boom in Hawthorn during the late nineteenth century before the on-set of the 1890s depression.

- The scale and grandeur of a number of the shops, particularly the three storey shops at 132-142 and 144-148 Auburn Road, reflect the importance of Auburn Village (and the middle class aspirations of Hawthorn at the time) as one of three major shopping centres in Hawthorn during the nineteenth century, and illustrates the type of development characterising a wealthy and dynamic city that led to the description 'Marvellous Melbourne'.

- The precinct is especially notable for the very intact late nineteenth century commercial streetscape in Auburn Road, which includes a remarkable collection of often elaborate and richly ornamented late Victorian shop rows that are complemented by a number of landmark buildings including the Auburn Hotel, Auburn Railway Station, and the three storey shop rows on the west side of the street.

- Many of the early shops within the precinct were designed by the noted local architect John Beswicke, who also designed the Hawthorn Town Hall.

- Burwood Road, while less intact, includes groups of commercial shop rows with common siting, scale, fenestration, and ornament that create relatively cohesive and homogeneous streetscapes that provide an appropriate context.

Group

Heritage Inventory Site Type

Category

Commercial