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Former Canterbury Club Hotel

Other Name Canterbury Mansions Location 208 Canterbury Road,, CANTERBURY VIC 3126 - Property No B4908 File Number B4908 Level State

[1/2] B4908 Canterbury Mansions [2/2] B4908 Canterbury Mansions

Statement of Significance

Canterbury Mansions (1889) and stables, formerly the Canterbury Club Hotel, is historically and architecturally significant at state level as a rare example of a suburban hotel complex of the late nineteenth century; a complex which includes the kitchen wing and two-storey brick stables, which were an integral and necessary part of the activities of the hotel.
The former Canterbury Club Hotel is also unique and historically significant in being able to provide visible, easily identifiable evidence, in built form, of the influence and power of the Temperance Movement in Victoria in the nineteenth and twentieth century. This movement brought about the reduction in numbers of hotels in Victoria in the nineteenth century; lessened the hours of hotel trading in 1915 and introduced "six o'clock closing" in 1916; and culminated with the Local Option Poll of 1920 and the closure of hotels in the Municipalities of Box Hill and Camberwell. Canterbury Mansions is the only known intact readily identifiable example of such an hotel.
Canterbury Mansions is architecturally significant as an example of the work of the important boom architect, William Wolf, designed in a conservative Italianate style which successfully adds to the prominence of the corner site by its composition with wings flanking a distinctive tower.
Classified: 26/11/1981
Revised: 15/05/1991