C207 Arden Macaulay Heritage Review
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Heritage Evidence: Amendment C207, Arden Macaulay Heritage Review Witness statement for the City of Melbourne by Graeme Butler `Melbourne and Its Suburbs' compiled by James Kearney, draughtsman; engraved by David Tulloch and James D. Brown. Victoria. Surveyor-General [Melbourne]: Andrew Clarke, Surveyor General 1855: (part, State Library of Victoria collection) Graeme Butler 2013: 1 Heritage Evidence: Amendment C207, Arden Macaulay Heritage Review Table of Contents Introduction.............................................................................................................................................. 4 Heritage assessment methodology ......................................................................................................... 6 Study findings .......................................................................................................................................... 8 Summary table of assessed places ........................................................................................................ 9 Study recommendations ....................................................................................................................... 30 Conclusion .................................................................................................... 31 Appendix 1: Expert comment on selected submissions to Amendment C207 ....................................................................................................................... 32 Appendix 2 Heritage Overlay Area Statements of Significance, historical themes and thematic chronology ............................................................. 198 Existing Heritage Overlay Area Statements of Significance within the project area........................... 198 Historical Themes ............................................................................................................................... 203 Thematic Chronology .......................................................................................................................... 209 Appendix 3: Heritage definitions used by Melbourne City Council ....... 236 Appendix 4: Assessment criteria used in the review .............................. 238 Appendix 5: General sources used in the review .................................... 239 Graeme Butler, 2013: 2 Heritage Evidence: Amendment C207, Arden Macaulay Heritage Review Figure 1 Arden Macaulay Project Area (project brief) Figure 2 West Melbourne Swamp as `salt lake' in `Map shewing the site of Melbourne and the position of the Huts & Building previous to the foundation of the Township by Sir Richard Bourke’. Robert Russell 1837. (VPRO). Graeme Butler, 2013: 3 Heritage Evidence: Amendment C207, Arden Macaulay Heritage Review Introduction The project area, being that part of North & West Melbourne and Kensington bordering the Moonee Ponds Creek, has a rich and varied history concentrated in the Victorian and Edwardian era. This history also includes inter-war development some of which paralleled the release of land along the creek's banks after flood control was achieved. The creek itself, formerly combined with a marshlands and a lagoon, is closely linked with pre-contact indigenous occupation (as reflected by the existing Area of Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Sensitivity which follows its course1). …this is sheet of water was termed indifferently " The Blue Lake " and " The Salt-water Lake " or " Lagoon " also I have later heard it styled as Batman's " or the " North Melbourne Swamp."2 The creek also provided a potential water supply for the first surveyed Kensington Village of the 1840s, adjoining the area on the west. The creek, lagoon and swamp formed a barrier to settlement and set the western border of Melbourne's early development. Subsequently, this part of the Moonee Ponds Creek, perhaps more than any other water course in urban Melbourne, was the focus of ongoing human manipulation including flood control that was dedicated to improving railway and market access from the north and access to shipping from the south. The same measures yielded land and infrastructure for industrial expansion that provided for some major structures linked with key primary industries in Victoria, such as wool growing and marketing. Once in place this reclaimed land and new land uses had to be protected by further extensive flood control infrastructure. Flooding also meant bridge replacement, as seen in the adoption of the inter- war reinforced concrete bridges over the Moonee Ponds Creek. The area also borders the 1850s gold rush route of the Mount Alexander Road that led to and past the famed Mount Alexander near the Castlemaine and Bendigo or Sandhurst gold fields. This overland route was paralleled by the extensive development of railway in the vicinity and use of the creek to access new docking areas to the south. The combination of railway and maritime goods handling was unequalled in any other part of Victoria, with vast railway yards and canals that linked with expanded docking areas. Contrasting with the other suburbs of the City of Melbourne, the adjoining heritage overlay area of North & West Melbourne has always been associated with primary industry, with the Metropolitan Meat Market and Queen Victoria Market as major and significant remnants of this special role in Victoria's and the local economy. The Hay, Horse and Pig Markets were in the triangular area between the Sydney and the Flemington Roads, North Melbourne, from 1842. These markets were refurbished during 1873-4 and the Queen Victoria Market built. At Kensington, the Newmarket saleyards were completed in 1858 and the first sales were held January 1859. Early establishment of cattle sales at Newmarket and meat sales at the Victoria Market site and, later at the Metropolitan Meat Market (1874) made North Melbourne a major meat and allied trades centre. In addition to these are landmark flour mill complexes that dominate visually and, historically, matching the Victorian-era growth period of the surrounding residential area. From 1874 a flour mill complex begins at Anderson streets and Munster Terrace, built up by Smith & Sons, later Thomas Brunton (1888-), TB Guest (c1896-) and Brockhoff in the 1880s, 1890s. Adjoining railway sidings and yards fed the complex. At Kensington Kimpton & Son owned a five-level gabled brick flour mill at the west end of Arden Street since 1887, coexisting with another flour miller to the north. This was Alex Gillespie who had been a partner of Thomas Brunton and Company (see Anderson St) and who owned a similar gabled brick mill built one year before. Twentyman and Askew called tenders for Kimpton & Son's new Eclipse Hungarian Roller Flour Mills in early 1887. Both the Kimpton and Gillespie mills were strategically placed to receive wheat by rail and despatch the flour to the heavily populated areas of Footscray, North Melbourne, Carlton and Brunswick, as well as to the nearby docks for shipment overseas. Both mills have been replaced: WS Kimpton & Sons Flour Mills rebuilding from 1904, 1 See Aboriginal Heritage Act 2006 2 RHSVJ V2:117 Recollections of Melbourne in the forties Graeme Butler, 2013: 4 Heritage Evidence: Amendment C207, Arden Macaulay Heritage Review absorbing Gillespie on the north (see 52-112 Elizabeth Street). After the first decade of 1900, the Kimpton complex was hailed as the most up-to-date flour mill in Australia. The largely Victorian and Edwardian era Kensington and North & West Melbourne residential heritage overlay areas to the west and east of the project area were also strongly linked with housing railways or flour mill employees. Major landmark buildings in the area also reflect the importance of Australia's foremost wool export trade, with the pre and immediate post Second War trading peaks seen in Sutton Street with the massive Commonwealth Wool & Produce Company Ltd. later Elder Smith & Co. Wool Stores of the 1930s and the Victorian Producers Co-operative Company Ltd wool store, reflecting the 1950s era when Australia could truly be said to be riding on the sheep's back. Flour mills and wool stores flank the Moonee Ponds Creek and rail network dominating the largely one and two storey houses around them, making the presence visually and historically powerful. Background to the review In 2011 the City of Melbourne commissioned Graeme Butler & Associates to provide heritage assessments of selected existing and potential heritage places in the Arden Macaulay Structure Plan area, straddling parts of North and West Melbourne and Kensington. Some of these places had been identified in the 1983-4 Graeme Butler North & West Melbourne and Flemington & Kensington urban conservation studies but others were highlighted by a review carried out by Meredith Gould Architects (MGA) in 2010, as the Heritage Assessment Arden Macaulay Structure Plan Area. Meredith Gould's work has formed the basis of the places selected in this review as has her judgment and evaluation. The Allom Lovell and Associates City of Melbourne Heritage Review 1999 had also assessed or documented some places within the study area but there has never been a comprehensive heritage review of either North & West Melbourne or Kensington since the 1980s urban conservation studies. The aim of the project was to examine these reviews and any subsequent data found on the selected places and make recommendations for inclusion or otherwise in the schedule to clause 43.01 of the Melbourne Planning Scheme on the basis of local heritage or State