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Singapore Cottage

Location 17 Coventry Place,, SOUTH MELBOURNE VIC 3205 - Property No B7150 File Number B7150 Level International

[1/2] B7150 Singapore Cottage [2/2] B7150 Singapore Cottage Side

Statement of Significance

What is significant? A Singapore cottage is a small prefabricated dwelling manufactured from local timbers and shipped from Singapore. All documented examples fall within the period 1837-1854. The Singapore Cottage in South Melbourne, built in 1854, was probably prefabricated by Malay carpenters from tropical timbers for Chinese traders in Singapore. The cottage has four rooms with a central corridor. The most intact components are the frame of heavy timbers and the joinery in the roof space, which illustrate characteristic features of Malay carpentry such as the row of king post trusses, a sub ridge beam, and painted markings on various frame members. The exterior has been rendered, and there are no original doors and windows. There is an early brick fireplace in the south-east room. Scattered sections of early internal cladding and wallpapers, some of which may be original, remain.
How is it significant? The Singapore Cottage is significant for architectural and historical reasons at an
international level.
Why is it significant? The Singapore Cottage, which was probably prefabricated by Malay carpenters from tropical timbers for Chinese traders in Singapore, is architecturally significant as the world's last true Singapore Cottage on its original site and as a relatively rare surviving prefabricated house in Victoria. It is one of only a small number of buildings exhibiting the use of Malayan timbers such as dedaru and meranti, Malayan and/or Chinese carpentry details, early wallpapers and other aspects of 1850s construction. The cottage was probably erected by Louis Ah Mouy, who was responsible for putting up similar houses in South Melbourne.
Historically, the Singapore Cottage is significant in demonstrating a particular aspect of the immigrant experience in the 1850s in Victoria. The cottage is also significant in the context of South Melbourne, where the first sale of land by the Crown was explicitly designed to facilitate the construction of buildings outside the scope of the Melbourne Building Act. As a result South Melbourne always had more prefabricated houses than any other part of Melbourne.
Classified: 03/12/2001