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Golden Square (Burnley) Precinct

Other Name

Golden Square Precinct, Richmond

Location

RICHMOND, YARRA CITY

Level

Included in Heritage Overlay

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Golden Square Precinct.JPG

Statement of Significance

What is significant?
The Golden Square precinct, comprising Adam Street, Barrow Place, Crimea and Gibdon streets, Loloya and Madden groves, and Parkville and Stawell streets, Burnley is significant. Contributory elements include Victorian, Edwardian and interwar houses typically having:

- Pitched gabled or hipped roofs, with some facade parapets;
- One storey wall heights but with some two storey house rows;
- Weatherboard, face brick (red, bichrome and polychrome), or stucco walls;
- Corrugated iron roof cladding, and some Marseilles pattern terra-cotta tiles and slate roofing;
- Chimneys of either stucco finish (with moulded caps) or of matching face brickwork with corbelled capping courses;
- Post-supported verandah or porch elements facing the street, sometimes set out on two levels, with cast-iron detailing for Victorian-era houses and timber detailing for Edwardian-era houses;
- Less than 40% of the street wall face comprised with openings such as windows and doors; and
- Front gardens, originally bordered by timber picket front fences of around 1m height.

Contributory elements also include:

- Corner shops and residences with display windows and zero boundary setbacks;
- One and two storey industrial buildings from the pre Second War era;
- One major Victorian-era industrial complex, being the former Burnley Brewery complex;
- Evidence of a former historic school reserve and plantings; and
- Public infrastructure, expressive of the Victorian and Edwardian-eras such as bluestone pitched road paving, crossings, stone kerbs and channels, and asphalt paved footpaths.

How is it significant?
The Golden Square precinct is aesthetically and historically significant to the locality of Richmond and the City of Yarra.

Why is it significant?
The precinct is historically significant as a good representation of modest early housing in the area, from the late 19th to the early 20th century, which provides tangible evidence of major phases of development in Richmond. (Criterion A)

The precinct is architecturally and aesthetically significant for its Victorian residential housing development ranging from simple weatherboard dwellings to Italianate villas and two unusual rows of two-storey terraces. It is also notable for some of the most architecturally distinctive small Edwardian cottages to be found in the municipality. The architectural and aesthetic qualities of the precinct are enhanced by the original bluestone lanes and gutters and other early street elements such as the pillar box in Madden Grove. (Criteria D & E)

The Golden Square Bicentennial Park and its mature trees is historically significant as symbolic of the Burnley Primary School, and the adjacent church sites, as two significant elements on the area's history. (Criterion A)

The Victorian-era former Burnley Maltings is historically significant as a major complex central to the history of the area over a long period, with its visually distinctive inter-war silos as remnants of the extensive industries that once crowded the banks of the Yarra. (Criterion A)

Group