Bendigo City Centre Heritage Study Stage 1 Volume 2: Individually Significant Places Final Report
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Bendigo City Centre Heritage Study Stage 1 Volume 2: Individually Significant Places Final report Report prepared for City of Greater Bendigo April 2020 22 Merri Street Brunswick VIC Australia 3056 T +61 3 9380 6933 GML Heritage Victoria Pty. Ltd. trading as Context ABN 31 620 754 761 www.contextpl.com.au Context Report Register The following report register documents the development and issue of the report entitled Bendigo City Centre Heritage Study, undertaken by Context in accordance with its quality management system. Job No. Issue No. Notes/Description Issue Date 2091 1 Draft report Volume 2: Individually Significant Places 22 September 2016 2091 2 Revised draft report Volume 2: Individually Significant Places 28 November 2016 2222 3 Revised draft report Volume 2: Individually Significant Places 18 September 2017 2455 4 Final report Volume 2: Individually Significant Places 3 April 2020 Quality Assurance The report has been reviewed and approved for issue in accordance with the Context quality assurance policy and procedures. Copyright Historical sources and reference material used in the preparation of this report are acknowledged and referenced at the end of each section and/or in figure captions. Reasonable effort has been made to identify, contact, acknowledge and obtain permission to use material from the relevant copyright owners. Unless otherwise specified or agreed, copyright in this report vests in Context and in the owners of any pre-existing historic source or reference material. Moral Rights Context asserts its Moral Rights in this work, unless otherwise acknowledged, in accordance with the (Commonwealth) Copyright (Moral Rights) Amendment Act 2000. Context’s moral rights include the attribution of authorship, the right not to have the work falsely attributed and the right to integrity of authorship. Right to Use Context grants to the client for this project (and the client’s successors in title) an irrevocable royalty- free right to reproduce or use the material from this report, except where such use infringes the copyright and/or Moral Rights of Context or third parties. Context Contents Page WILLIAM VAHLAND PLACE, BENDIGO 1 8-10 GARSED STREET, BENDIGO 11 159 HARGREAVES STREET, BENDIGO 23 165-171 HARGREAVES STREET, BENDIGO 37 426 HARGREAVES STREET, BENDIGO 51 156-158 LYTTLETON TERRACE, BENDIGO 65 259-265 LYTTLETON TERRACE, BENDIGO 77 314 LYTTLETON TERRACE, BENDIGO 93 322-326 LYTTLETON TERRACE, BENDIGO 103 80-84 MITCHELL STREET, BENDIGO 119 96 MOLLISON STREET, BENDIGO 133 56 MUNDY STREET, BENDIGO 149 25 QUEEN STREET, BENDIGO 165 7-9 ST ANDREWS AVENUE, BENDIGO 177 35-39 SHORT STREET, BENDIGO 193 106 WILLIAMSON STREET, BENDIGO 205 114 WILLIAMSON STREET, BENDIGO 217 116 WILLIAMSON STREET, BENDIGO 231 Bendigo City Centre—Heritage Study, April 2020 Context Bendigo City Centre—Heritage Study, April 2020 Context WILLIAM VAHLAND PLACE, BENDIGO VAHLAND DRINKING FOUNTAIN Prepared by: Context Survey Date: October 2019 Place Type: Fountain / Monument Architect: William C. Vahland Significance level: Significant Builder: W. Beebe Jnr. Extent of overlay: Refer to map Construction Date: 1881, 2016 (restoration) Figure 1. Vahland Drinking Fountain in William Vahland Place, Bendigo. (Source: Context, October 2019) Figure 2. Detail of the Vahland Drinking Fountain in William Vahland Place, Bendigo. (Source: Context, October 2019) Bendigo City Centre—Heritage Study, April 2020 1 Context HISTORICAL CONTEXT City of Greater Bendigo framework of historic themes This place is associated with the following historic themes taken from the Greater Bendigo Thematic Environmental History (2013): 6.0 Building towns, cities and the Greater Bendigo area 6.1 Establishing settlement in the Greater Bendigo Municipality 6.5 Markign significant phases in development of settlements, towns and cities The share boom of early 1870s stimulated the building industry in Sandhurst. Public institutions such as the Hospital and Benevolent Asylum were enlarged to cope with increased demands made on them from the influx of population, and, confident about the city’s future, the city’s founders established schools and technical institutions.1 Public rituals, such as the Easter Fair and St Patrick’s Day, also established during the 1870s, played an important role in the civic life of Sandhurst. The period up to 1875 was one of foundation building.2 Architect William Vahland was a key figure in the design and construction of many of Sandhurst’s public buildings. By the mid-1870s, the mining boom was in decline. Shares in major companies plummeted, gold yields decreased markedly between 1876 and 1880, and accumulation of water in abandoned claims caused significant drainage problems from the late 1870s. Only 22 new mining companies were registered in 1874 compared with 197 in 1873,3 and in June 1876, the mining surveyor listed only 31 working shafts, ranging from 700 to 1090 feet in depth.4 Those companies that remained became more highly capitalised and employed increasingly sophisticated technology. Unemployment rose, building activity slowed, and residents left to find work elsewhere. By the late 1870s Sandhurst was experiencing a serious recession. In the face of recession, council made the improvement of both the built and natural environment a priority with funding sought from the colonial government for improvements to public institutions. 5 Historian Michael Roper maintains that by their very magnificence, buildings like the Post Office, Mechanics’ Institute, Hospital and Benevolent Society, served as symbolic proof that the city was outliving its failing mining industry, becoming a place of beauty, staying the exodus to the metropolis, and immortalising the achievements of its pioneers.6 The economy improved and the population increased from the early 1880s. By 1885, Sandhurst supported a relatively stable population, had a significant industrial base and was the marketing and commercial hub of an expanding agricultural district. As Roper argues, the transformation of Sandhurst from the town of the 1860s to the city of the 1880s was accompanied by the ‘movement of the first generation from fiery anti-authoritarianism to intense and potentially conservative loyalty to Great Britain’, elements of which were manifested in the establishment of public rituals and the built environment, which exemplified both the financial success of the Bendigo goldfield and the consequent prosperity of the city.7 A critical aspect of the transformation from town to city, Roper maintains, was the 1 Michael Roper, “Inventing Traditions in Goldfields Society: Public Rituals and Townbuilding in Sandhurst, 1867-1885” (Master of Arts Degree, Department of History, Monash University, 1986), 345. 2 Ibid. 31. 3 Mineral Statistics 1872 and 1874. Cited in ibid., 76-77. 4 Mining Surveyors’ Reports, June 1876. Cited in David Bannear, and N. Watson, ‘North Central Goldfields Historic Mining Sites Strategy, Revised Draft,’ (Melbourne, Vic.: Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, North West Area, November 1994), 33. 5 Roper, “Inventing Traditions in Goldfields Society: Public Rituals and Townbuilding in Sandhurst, 1867-1885,” 31-32, 199. 6 Ibid., 346. 7 Ibid., 10, passim. 2 Bendigo City Centre—Heritage Study, April 2020 Context evolution of distinct boundaries around Sandhurst’s principal park spaces, and around its administrative, retail and commercial precincts, with Alexandra Fountain, opened in July 1881, defining the city’s ceremonial space. Public processions generally dispersed at the Fountain with a ritual performance involving the city’s prominent citizens.8 As part of the building program at this time, by 1893 nineteen drinking fountains were in existence in Bendigo.9 PLACE HISTORY The Vahland Drinking Fountain was originally erected and opened in 1881, to a design by prominent architect William C. Vahland, at the junction of Bridge Street and Pall Mall. The original Vahland- designed drinking fountain comprised four decorative water outlets over a circular water stock drinking trough lit by four gas lamps mounted on a Harcourt granite obelisk (Figure 3). Erected with upper and lower troughs, the fountain was designed to provide water for both people and animals. Vahland described the design for the ‘watertrough and lamps at the East end of Pall Mall’ in a report to Bendigo City council on 23 April 1880: The watertroughs, steps and Basin to be of Bluestone, the Shaft & Cap to be of polished Granite; the Arms of the Lamps &c to be of Castiron, the extreme height of this erection will be about 20 feet and the width of the Base 13 feet, each Watertrough will be about 5 feet long.10 Figure 3. The Vahland-designed drinking fountain at its original location. (Source: ‘View of Pall Mall from Bridge Street, Bendigo’ c.1906, SLV) 8 Ibid., 161. 9 George Minto, Bendigo City Council surveyor, report to council, 3 March 1893, in Bendigo Regional Archives Centre (BRAC), Sandhurst/Bendigo Inwards Correspondence (1856-1899), VPRS 16936, P1. Provided by Dr Michele Matthews, BRAC Archives Officer. 10 Bendigo Regional Archives Centre (BRAC), Sandhurst/Bendigo Inwards Correspondence (1856-1899), VPRS 16936, P1. Bendigo City Centre—Heritage Study, April 2020 3 Context In May 1880, Bendigo City Council accepted the tender of William Beebe junior for the erection of ‘an ornamental lamp’ in Howard Place.11 Beebe junior, then a stonemason working in the Beebe family’s stone yards in Mitchell Street, later followed Vahland as a prominent architect. On 17 May 1881, the Bendigo Advertiser reported: THE HOWARD-PLACE FOUNTAIN. - This fountain which was lighted for the first time on Saturday night, was formally handed over to the City Council yesterday. It is certainly a wonderful improvement on the old country town affair which it has replaced, and which is left standing with the idea it is to be presumed of letting the citizens have the benefit of the contrast for a while. The granite work is of a good sample of Harcourt granite; cut, polished, and erected by Mr. W. Beebe, jun., of Mitchell-street, from designs of Mr. Vahland, and the lamps which are on the Sugden pattern and have a very good effect, were made by Mr.