Cranmore Estate and Environs Precinct

The Cranmore Estate & Environs Precinct comprising: 238-272 & 302-326 Barkers Road; 2-32 & 1-15 Elphin Grove; 3-65 & 71-95, 60-82 & 96-104 Liddiard St; Churchill Grove, Salisbury Grove, Sercombe Grove, York Street, Bowen Street, 2-6 Vicars Street, Carrington Street, Percy Street, Moir Street, Haines Street, Bell Street, Edward Street, Hull Street, and 7-33, 4-38 Johnson Street, is significant.

How is it significant?

The Cranmore Estate & Environs is of local historic, architectural and aesthetic significance to the City of Boroondara.

Why is it significant?

The Cranmore Estate & Environs Precinct is historically significant as a representative of the development in Hawthorn in the Barkers Road area in the 1880s, especially after the construction of the Victoria Street Bridge across the Yarra River in 1884. The bridge provided an impetus for development east of the river through better transport links. The precinct demonstrates the practice of subdivision through a series of land sales, often taking in the pre-existing large land holdings of mansion houses. The Cranmore Estate & Environs Precinct demonstrates the former location of the larger estates and the many land sales through its street alignments and pattern, developed over a short eleven-year period from 1879 to 1890.

The precinct is historically significant, being formed from the following land subdivisions:

-Liddiard Street and Bowen Street, 1879

-Liddiard, Bell, Moir and Edwards Streets - Edwards Paddock 1883

-Bowen Estate: Bowen Street, Vicars Street, Carrington Street and Hull Street,1888, incorporating 'Mr Edwards house and garden'

-Cranmore Estate: Percy Street, Barkers Road, Haines Street and Edwards Street, 1885-88, and incorporating Cranmore House

-Payne's Paddock: Barkers Road, Sercombe Grove, Salisbury Grove and Churchill Grove, 1885-87

-Irwell Estate: Barkers Road and Elphin Grove,1885-86

-Falmouth Estate: Liddiard Street (part of south side), 1886

-Goss's Orchard: Edward Steer and Haines Street, 1888

-York Estate:Barkers Road and York Street, 1890

The precinct is historically significant for the few shops that are in Bell and Haines Street that indicate a past era of a more mixed neighbourhood combining both shops and residences closely related, including:

-2, 38 and 48 Bell Street

-6 Haines Street

-302-304 Barkers Road (Cnr Haines Street)

The precinct is also historically significant for commercial buildings in upper Glenferrie Road that demonstrate later development of the strip shopping centre along Glenferrie Road, which is significant as the major shopping centre in Hawthorn. (Criterion A)

Historically the Hull Street Reserve is a modest version of the reserves provided in more well-to-do areas of Hawthorn such as St James Park.

The Cranmore Estate & Environs Precinct demonstrates a largely Victorian era precinct of worker's housing. Whilst predominantly exhibiting Victorian-era residential development, a number of. Edwardian and interwar examples are located in Liddiard Street. The precinct generally demonstrates key characteristics including small allotment size, single and double-fronted (but generally small and single-storey) houses, both attached and detached, and predominantly of timber construction. It is comparable to the large precinct of West Hawthorn (HO220), both precincts providing evidence of the range of house types provided for the lower middle classes built singly and in pairs, terraces and groups. Two boundaries of the precinct are well defined by Glenferrie Road and Barkers Road, both major roads through Boroondara. Development in Liddiard Street is of more variety with paired Edwardian and interwar housing and some larger allotments with Victorian, Edwardian and interwar bungalows. (Criterion D)

The Cranmore Estate & Environs precinct is aesthetically significant for the range and consistency of its Victorian-era workers' housing, and its places of individual significance in Liddiard Street, Barkers and Salisbury Roads, and Elphin Grove. The patterns of development are evident in the different forms of houses that utilise Victorian (and to a lesser extent) Federation elements. Hipped and gabled roof forms in various combinations, verandahs of timber and cast iron construction with forms of fretwork and friezes, windows, including bay windows, form repetitive elements across the precinct.

Liddiard Street and Barkers Road provide opportunity for larger and later villas, some with a higher degree of detail and more individuality in design. Several of these currently have individual heritage status. Several substantial interwar bungalows exhibit typical features of plain red brick with terra cotta tiles roofs and shingle gable detail. New places identified with particularly high aesthetic value or unusual design features include:

-15 Elphin Grove, whilst typical in form, displays stucco work of a high quality

-1 Salisbury Road demonstrates sophisticated timber joinery and design

The internal streets of the precinct are aesthetically significant for their consistent scale and use of materials (weatherboard, block-fronted weatherboard, red and polychrome brickwork, slate and corrugated iron). Examples include 5, and 7-17 Churchill Grove, which feature pedimented parapets and bichrome brickwork.

The precinct is aesthetically significant for the bluestone paved laneways that form a secondary circulation route, including:

-Front of 1-3 Moir Street through to York Street

-Between the rear of 19 Moir Street and the rear of 34 Haines Street (behind 3 & 5 Percy Street)

-Liddiard St through to Bowen Street (not bluestone paved) - linked to a bluestone laneway to Hull Street

-Rear of 11 Bowen Street andthe back of 15 Carrington Street - bluestone paved

-At the rear of 2 Sercombe Grove through to Glenferrie Rd From Barkers Road, next to Elphin Mews

-Along the north side of 1 Elphin Grove, then south behind1-13 Elphin Grove

The Cranmore Estate & Environs Precinct derives its aesthetic value from its density of development with similar patterns of houses repeated throughout, often in groups clearly built by the same builder at the same time. The precinct benefits from a low level of non-contributory places and lack of major alterations to its many contributory elements. (Criterion E)

Group

Residential buildings (private)

Category

Residential Precinct