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Sewell's Cottage

Location

94 Morris Street,, WILLIAMSTOWN VIC 3016 - Property No B7259

File Number

B7259

Level

Local

Statement of Significance

STATEMENT OF CULTURAL HERITAGE SIGNIFICANCE:
What is significant? Sewell's cottage was built in 1864 by Richard Sewell as a home for his family. Sewell was an engineer, trained in Manchester, who arrived in Port Phillip in 1858 and worked for most of his life with the Victorian Railways Department. His wife Emma, a dressmaker, arrived in Port Philip with her family on the same ship as Sewell, married him in 1859, and by 1881 they had eleven children. The cottage was at first only two rooms, in 1867 another room was added to the front, and by 1892 another two rooms had been added at the rear.
Sewell's Cottage is a single storey asymmetrical double fronted cottage of random coursed bluestone. It has a bluestone addition projecting forward at one side of the front facade. The house has a hipped corrugated iron roof extending over the front facade to form a verandah. The front facade is enhanced by half-coursed stonework, sills and drafted margins to the window and door reveals. A garden separates the house from the street boundary. There is a red brick addition at the rear.
How is it significant? Sewell's Cottage is significant for aesthetic/architectural and historic reasons at a Local level.
Why is it significant? Sewell's Cottage is historically significant as a rare survivor of the first phase of settlement in Williamstown and for its associations with the Sewell family.
Sewell's Cottage is aesthetically/architecturally significant as an unusual example in the area of an early Victorian bluestone cottage, notable for its relatively large size and asymmetric form. It is one of comparatively few bluestone buildings in Williamstown, a place otherwise noted for its fine public buildings and wide range of timber houses. It is typical of vernacular cottage traditions of the mid-nineteenth century in Australia. It is also an important part of the South Williamstown streetscape and makes a notable contribution to the character of the area.
Classified: 29/11/2004

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