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CHARLES STREET PRECINCT

Other Name

Charles Street Precinct, Abbotsford

Location

CHARLES STREET AND 227-233 NICHOLSON STREET AND 160 PARK STREET AND 50-96 & 57-103 STAFFORD STREET ABBOTSFORD, YARRA CITY

Level

Included in Heritage Overlay

[1/3]
Charles Street Precinct
[2/3]
56-62 Stafford Street, looking
[3/3]
57-63 Stafford Street, looking

Statement of Significance

What is significant?

The Charles Street Precinct, Abbotsford, is significant. The main development period evident is that of the Victorian and Edwardian-period, with a contribution from some inter-war buildings and individually significant places of all eras.

The majority of the contributory buildings are small attached and detached Victorian and Edwardian-era one-storey houses having typically:

. Expressed steeply gabled or hipped roofs, with some facade parapets;

. One storey wall heights;

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

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

. Chimneys of either stucco finish (with moulded caps) or of matching face brickwork with corbelled capping courses (red brick in the Edwardian-era);

. Post-supported verandah elements facing the street;

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

. Front gardens, originally bordered by timber picket front fences of around 1m height.

Contributory elements also include:

. Single-storey inter-war dwellings;

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

. Typically one-storey industrial buildings;

. Street tree plantings;

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

. Public building groups such as the Collingwood Town Hall group.

How is it significant?

HO313 Charles Street Precinct, Abbotsford is aesthetically and historically significant to the City of Yarra.

Why is it significant?

The Charles Street Precinct is historically significant (Criterion A):

. As a good representation of modest workers' housing, being substantially intact timber and masonry buildings from the late 19th and early 20th century, and as one of the more intact early residential precincts in Abbotsford.

. For some well preserved industrial and commercial buildings (i.e., in Gipps, Yarra and Studley streets), dating predominantly from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but with a contribution from the inter-war era;

The Charles Street Precinct is aesthetically significant (Criterion E):

. For the core of civic buildings and parklands (public health, community gathering places, civic, and religious examples) of individual significance, including the landmark Collingwood Town Hall, which is one of the most important civic buildings in the City of Yarra;

. For its early street, lane and allotment layouts, together with original bluestone infrastructure such as kerbs and guttering, providing an appropriate setting for the buildings, along with the narrow open drain between Nicholson and Charles streets as testimony to a legacy of frequent floods and pollution which influenced the area's development; and

. For the mature street trees in Gipps, Langridge, Nicholson and Stanton streets, and mature trees in parks, in particular, the Gahan Reserve, as evocative of the area's significant development era.

Group