499 Swan Street

Precinct statement of significance

Component streets include:

Bendigo Street,

Brooks Street,

Khartoum Street,

Kimber Street,

Moore Street,

Park Grove,

Queen Street,

Survey Street,

Swan Street.

Statement of Significance

What is significant?

The Bendigo Street Heritage Overlay Area was part of Crown Allotment 16 as sold to J M Chisholm in 1840. (17) Plans from 1895 show that, by then, three-quarters of the area was developed with housing, mostly in Park Grove, Kimber, Brooks and Survey Streets. The Wertheim Piano Factory (HO224), later the GTV9 television studios, dominated the area from the Edwardian-era. The factory was once the largest piano factory in Australia, occupying a four acre site, complete with its own power generator and tramline. Designed c1909 by architect Nahum Barnet, the buildings are important heritage elements in the streetscape.

Nearby Richmond Park (now Burnley Park) was the pleasure ground for this area as well as the rest of inner Melbourne and now forms the eastern boundary of the area.

Main development era

The main development era evident in the heritage overlay is that of the Victorian and Edwardian-eras, with a contribution from well preserved interwar buildings and individually significant places of all eras, such as the former Wertheim Piano Factory.

Contributory elements

The contributory buildings in the Bendigo St Heritage Overlay Area include mainly (but not exclusively) small attached and detached Victorian-era and Edwardian-era one-storey houses, but with some well preserved residential examples from the immediate post First-War era, having typically:

. Pitched gabled or hipped roofs, with some facade parapets;

. One storey wall heights;

. Weatherboard, face brick (red, bichrome and polychrome), bluestone, or stucco walls;

. Corrugated iron roof cladding, Marseilles pattern terra-cotta tiles, with some slate roofing;

. Chimneys of either stucco finish (with moulded caps) or of matching face brickwork with corbelled capping courses;

. Post-supported verandah or porch elements facing the street;

. Less than 40% of the street wall face comprised with openings such as windows and doors; and

. Front gardens, originally bordered by typically timber picket front fences or wire fences (inter-war) of around 1m height; also

. Corner shops and residences with large display windows and zero boundary setbacks.

Public infrastructure, expressive of the Victorian and Edwardian-eras such as stone pitched road paving, kerbs and channels, and asphalt paved footpaths

How is it significant?

HO309 Bendigo Street Heritage Overlay Area, Richmond is aesthetically and historically significant to the City of Yarra (National Estate Register [NER]Criteria E1, A4)

Why is it significant?

The Bendigo Street Heritage Overlay Area is significant for:

. Its substantially intact single-storey Victorian-era housing that varies between modest and ornate;

. Edwardian house examples, particularly in Swan and Moore Streets, being both typical and highly decorated Edwardian dwelling types, complemented by the significant Edwardian-era former Wertheim Piano Factory;

. The retention of early materials and elements in the public domain, such as street construction, and the retention of many bluestone laneways;

. The demonstration of a typical 19th century suburban area with its attached and detached housing stock and corner shops, that has been subsequently lost in other parts of the inner suburbs; and

. The consistency of building scale and setbacks, creating cohesive and homogeneous streetscapes that are enhanced by mature plane tree avenue plantings.

References

17 Richmond area Parish Plan.

Group

Residential buildings (private)

Category

House