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FORMER COMMON SCHOOL NO. 981

Location

28 VIEW STREET KANGAROO FLAT, GREATER BENDIGO CITY

File Number

607860

Level

Registered

Statement of Significance

The Kangaroo Flat school is the sole occupant of a triangular block surrounded by road in Kangaroo Flat. The first Common school was built here in 1870 by builder George Pallett, to a design by the prolific Bendigo architectural firm of Vahland and Getzschman. The style has been described as German Renaissance Revival. The building is of red brick with cream brick pilasters and parapets, and stucco detailing. The elaborate front gable features a porch with twin arched openings flanked by stucco tourelles, and pilasters surmounted by miniature castellated cappings (now missing). When built a raised lantern ran the length of the ridge above the queen-post truss roof structure. This was intended to provide light and ventilation to the classroom without the distraction and glare from windows in walls. The side walls were originally blank, and windows were added in the early twentieth century when the lantern was removed. The second brick building was added in 1877, in a restrained Gothic style similar to many urban schools of that period. It features cream and red brick banding and patterning, timber eaves brackets and bellcote, and jerkinhead slate roof. The adjoining timber and weatherboard classrooms with verandah were added shortly after. The buildings are now a part of the Kangaroo Flat Primary School which also occupies newer premises on another block nearby.

The Kangaroo Flat School building is of architectural importance to the State of Victoria.

The design of the Vahland and Getzschmann portion of the Kangaroo Flat Common School exhibits a particularly rich and unusual combination of features, in a period when most Common schools, especially in rural areas, were very austere. The building is executed in a striking German Romanesque Revival style, making use of decorative elements and scale in a manner not seen among the other works of these architects. Kangaroo Flat displays the most complete and elaborate example of three school buildings designed in very similar form and style by these architects. The shape of the existing gable ends still reflects the unusual lantern for ventilation and lighting which originally ran the length of the ridge.

Group