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Former Court House - Koroit Historic Area

Location Boundary Road East,, KOROIT VIC 3282 - Property No B1813 File Number B1813 Level Regional

[1/1] B1813 Fmr Court House Boundary

Statement of Significance

Individual Statement of Significance: One of rural Victoria's most substantial churches, built by the large Irish community in the district and comparable in style with several churches by Pugin in Ireland. Of bluestone with Freestone dressings built in two stages. The first section, comprising the chancel and eastern bays of the nave, was designed by W W Wardell and built in 1867-70, with the remaining section of the nave, tower and incomplete spire added in 1914-16 to the design of W B Tappin. A severe design unrelieved by ornamentation, the clerestoried nave and chancel are placed beneath an unbroken roof ridge. The interior includes triple lancet stained glass windows above the main altar by Ferguson & Urie.
Court House Classified: 'Local' 22/10/1964
Revised: 20/08/1977

Historic Area Statement of Significance: The significance of Koroit derives from its role as the urban centre of one of the most concentrated Irish Roman Catholic rural districts in Australia, noted for its mixed livestock and cropping agricultrual patterns. This is reflected in two separate and distinctive areas in the town-the administrative/commercial area and the church precinct.
The administrative and commercial area (focussing on the Boundary-Commercial Road/High Street intersection and the Koroit Hotel) consists of a number of significant public buildings and leads to a street of relatively intact humble shopfronts and kerbline verandahs, visually punctuated by opposing bank facades. The church precinct is dominated by a group of Catholic buildings larger in scale and more complete in range than those in any comparably sized Victorian town.
The town also has a significant association with Australian literature. Australian author Henry Handel Richardson both lived in Koriot, and used the town as a setting in her semi-biographical novel "The Fortunes of Richard Mahony".
Historic Area File B4746. Classified: 'Regional' 02/091985.
See also File Numbers: B1812, B4746, B3259, B2278 & B892