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Forres Farm
Location182-200 A'Beckett Road,NARRE WARREN NORTH, Casey City LevelIncluded in Heritage Overlay |
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Statement of Significance
What is significant?
‘Forres Farm’, including the farmhouse, brick dairy, setting and mature cypress trees at 188 A’Beckett Road, Narre Warren North is significant.
Significant structures and elements of the site include:
Significant structures and elements of the site include:
- The farmhouse building constructed c.1900. To the extent of its original built form and fabric, including its:
- Single storey-built form, square plan, hipped roof, and original external walls (including those currently enclosed by later additions)
- Pattern of fenestration, symmetrically arranged façade, and return verandah
- Materials and detailing, including the roughcast and smooth render detailing, chimneys, timber chamfered verandah posts, timber window and door joinery
- Siting (generous front side and rear setbacks)
- Setting, including the two mature Monterey cypress trees and three Mediterranean cypress trees, and open rural character.
- Views across open spaces to the north and west.
Contributory structures and elements of the site include:
- The weatherboard rear lean-to addition (built 1940s)
- The brick dairy building (built 1940s-50s), including its overall built form, external walls, window and door openings and timber window joinery.
- The House paddock, unsealed entrance drive, front garden setting.
Non-contributory elements include the structures built after 1970, including the sunroom addition, verandah infill addition and its replacement verandah fabric, north-east corner addition, Colorbond roof cladding, dairy shed and silos, recently constructed sheds and later tree plantings.
How is it significant?
‘Forres Farm’ is of local historic, representative, and aesthetic significance to the City of Casey.
Why is it significant?
‘Forres Farm’ is demonstrative of the historic agricultural development of Narre Warren North from the early to mid-twentieth century. In particular, the site reflects the transition from a mixed farming to dairying, a shift which is a dominant historical narrative in the area.
From the mid-to-late nineteenth century, the subject site was used for mixed farming by the Bolduan (at least until 1924) and the Erdmann families, both pioneer German settlers in the area. The farmhouse (built c.1900), and the oak tree and hedgerow on the A’Beckett Road reserve (outside of the southern boundary of Forres Farm property and not part of the heritage overlay), are associated with this early phase of development. In the early 1940s, Scottish born William and Lucy Inch acquired the site, naming it ‘Forres Farm’ and establishing a dairy farm on the land. In the 1940s-1950s, the Inchs’ made several changes to the place during its initial conversion to a dairy farm. The brick dairy building, used as a cool room, Mediterranean cypress trees marking the farm entrance, and the Monterey cypresses forming a windbreak to the rear of the farmhouse, date from this period. After the 1960s, several corrugated iron sheds of standard design, including the existing dairy shed, were constructed onsite to support farming activity. (Criterion A)
‘Forres Farm’ demonstrates the principal characteristics of an early twentieth century dairy farm in the City of Casey. The Forres Farm dwelling is typical of a Victorian farmhouse built at the turn of the century. It is a single storey structure with a hipped roof clad in corrugated iron and encircling verandah transitioning between the house and its cottage garden setting. The farmhouse has a square plan of Georgian derivation, comprising a central hall flanked by two rooms on either side. Externally, its principal façade has a typical symmetrical arrangement with the entrance door forming the centrepiece of the composition. The setting is typical of a small twentieth century family operated farm. The farmhouse is separated from the productive farming areas by an unsealed entrance drive. Two tall cypresses mark the entrance from A’Beckett Road. Vernacular corrugated iron sheds, paddocks, the brick dairy building and remnant Monterey Cypress windbreak trees further contribute to the rural character and representative setting for the farmhouse. (Criterion D)
Although altered, the Forres Farm farmhouse exhibits aesthetic characteristics associated with turn of the century farmhouses. The building itself, with its modest scale and four room plan of Georgian derivation, symmetrically arranged façade, encircling verandah, and pair of chimneys has a quaint rural aesthetic quality. This is enhanced by the surviving chamfered timber verandah posts and distinct, finer render detailing which contrasts roughcast render walls with smooth render quoins. The cottage garden, paddocks, cypresses and surrounding open space landscape provide a picturesque setting that further heightens the aesthetic qualities of the place. (Criterion E)
‘Forres Farm’ has local associative significance to the City of Casey through its connection to the early German Lutheran community that formed in Harkaway in the mid-nineteenth century. German Lutherans began to settle in Harkaway in the 1850s, being amongst the first Europeans to settle in the area. Generally arriving from Silesia, the German community formed strong communal and social ties that were further reinforced as later generations intermarried. ‘Forres Farm’ was associated with some of the earliest and most well-known German families in the district, the Wanke, Erdmann, and Bolduan families, and is demonstrated through the extant homestead, built by either the Bolduan or Erdmann families. (Criterion H)
Group
Farming and Grazing
Category
Homestead Complex