Beech Street Residential Precinct (Additional Places – HO24)
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Beech Street Residential Precinct (Additional Places – HO24) Name Beech Street Precinct (Additional Places) Address Various High, Fir and Dates 1890 - 1930 Panton Streets Designer/s Various Builder/s Various Significance Local Survey 25 March 2020 Date Recommendation Precinct Heritage Overlay within the City of Greater Bendigo Planning Scheme. 68 Panton Street is recommended for an Individual Overlay. NOTE- As a result of the closure of several key research facilities due to COVID-19 it has not been possible to research the full history of the place. This has also caused some historical statements to be based on secondary sources where primary sources may have been available in other circumstances. It is also likely that additional historical information is available but inaccessible currently. Figure 1: Aerial view of the area. Image: Google Earth. 1 Minerva Heritage 2020 Contextual history As part of his general survey of the Bendigo Creek valley and its environs in late 1852, government surveyor William Urquhart chose a place for the township of Sandhurst on Bendigo Creek below the government camp, the site of some of the richest alluvial diggings on the field. In 1853-54 R W Larritt, district surveyor, acting under instructions from the Surveyor-General Andrew Clarke, surveyed the alluvial diggings of White Hills, Kangaroo Flat, Golden Gully (including Golden Square), and Bendigo Flat laying detailed grids over the organic development of the existing gold workings. The first survey of land in Golden Square was carried out in 1853-54 by Larritt as part of the survey of the Township of Sandhurst. Golden Square was divided into two parts: Portion A fronted the south side of High Street, and comprised the area of Golden Square between Ash and Booth streets, with a small section fronting the north side of High Street between Maple Street and Booth Street; Portion B fronted the north side of High Street, and comprised an area of Golden Square between Ophir and Thistle streets (see Figure 4). Larritt’s survey of Golden Square named the streets crossing High Street after English trees: Ash, Elm, Oak, Poplar, Bay, Fir, Beech and Lombardy.1 Shamrock Street was named after the emblem for Ireland; Rose Street for the emblem of England; and Thistle Street for the emblem of Scotland. Some of the first homes on the Bendigo goldfield were built by alluvial miners at Golden Point (Golden Square) in 1851-52. The first land sales at Bendigo took place in April 1854 at which allotments in Golden Square were sold. The construction of residences soon followed. In the 1850s, alluvial miners following the rushes often erected only temporary, rudimentary homes from tents or slabs close to the places they were mining. The Miner’s Right was enacted in 1855 and for £1 per year gave the holder the right to dig for gold, vote at parliamentary elections, and reside on land claimed for mining purposes. By 1857, the Miner’s Residency Area was increased to a quarter acre. In 1859, the rating of properties at Golden Point carried out by the Sandhurst Borough council listed 47 dwellings (which would have included huts, tents, framed tents and slab dwellings as well as timber and rubble stone cottages) on Crown land, 12 at Golden Square Point also on Crown land, and at Golden Square 13 on Crown land, 4 privately owned, and 12 shops or stores which were all privately owned. Those on Crown land were on Miner’s Rights. After 1865, the Residence Area could be registered and sold together with any improvements, for example, house, garden, sheds and fencing. The security supplied by the Miner’s Right was reflected at Golden Square, where by 1859, nine permanent houses had been constructed. Because of the popularity of the Miner’s Right and its accompanying Residence Area for the construction of homes, some areas of Golden Square remained Crown land through to the 1980s and 1990s.2 With more permanent work provided through the establishment of quartz mines, workers from the 1860s built their homes near their places of work, mines located on the main 1 The Argus, 30 June, 1854, p.3. 2 BRAC, Bundle 1, Item 549, undated, and various Title documents. 2 Minerva Heritage 2020 reefs. Populations gathered in areas based on religion and national background; Golden Square, for example, featured a large Cornish population. Simple, small-scale timber miner’s cottages were constructed in Golden Square through to the 1870s, with brick cottages built from the 1860s. With the mining boom of the 1870s, more substantial homes were constructed. Because of the rapid development of the Sandhurst area, surveying was undertaken by independent, private surveyors. An 1874 report to the Surveyor General noted that over 1,100 detached surveys existed of the district. A resurvey of Sandhurst to consolidate existing surveys was subsequently ordered and undertaken by Black ca. 1880.3 Black’s survey of ca.1880 shows that much of the area of Golden Square had been surveyed into allotments and sold by that time. However, large sections of Crown land also remained as part of existing mining leases. Over the mining boom years of the 1880s-1890s, Golden Square’s residents of means, mostly wealthy mine or business owners, were able to construct substantial homes that were sometimes architect designed. Local active architects in the Golden Square area in this period included William Beebe, James Blair and F W Lehmann.4 With a decline in mining and closure of associated industries in the first two decades of the twentieth century, the City of Bendigo’s population almost halved between 1901 and 1911, falling from 30,774 to 17,883.5 As mines and associated industries closed, new areas opened up for residential development. In a number of cases these areas were on Crown land that had formerly been part of large mining leases that were no longer operating. A number of the individual blocks within these areas were originally held under Miner’s Rights giving the occupier access to land within the Miner’s Right Residency areas at very little cost. Secure occupancy of the land then allowed them to obtain housing loans to build new homes at a house and land price that was affordable. By 1921 the Bendigo municipality’s population had reached 25,682, and from the 1920s, with a further decline in mining from 1918, only gradual population growth took place, with the tramways, the railways and the textile industry as major employers.6 Former mine sites in Golden Square, located in close proximity to transport routes and the city of Bendigo, were opened for suburban development. New infill housing development on reclaimed mine land occurred at this time.7 In the 1930s economic depression, the high price of gold led a mining revival. In the late 1930s, the State batteries at Eaglehawk and Golden Square were kept occupied practically throughout the year, as was the Sheepshead battery.8 Cyaniding old mine battery sands continued until the outbreak of World War Two. 3 Hull, R. 2006, Origins of Bendigo Street Names Book 1, Australian Institute of Genealogical Studies inc. Bendigo, p.6. 4 History Making, 2019, pp. 31,32. 5 Victorian Places, 2015. 6 Ibid. 7 City of Greater Bendigo, Heritage Design Guidelines, 2015, p.14. 8 Bannear, David, and Annear, Robyn, 1990,‘Bendigo-HistorcialNotes’,Assessment of Historic Mining Sites in the Castlemaine-Chewton Area- a Pilot Study, Historic Mining Sites, Assessment Committee, Castlemaine 3 Minerva Heritage 2020 As Australia, like the rest of the world, was recovering from the economic depression, the introduction of the Land (Residence Areas) Act 1935 allowed Victorians to occupy (lease) a Residence Area on auriferous land or, under Section 12, to purchase land if the holder had been in possession for at least two and a half years, that a habitable dwelling had been erected, and that there was no objection to the alienation of the land. This legislation played an important role in enabling Bendigo residents to become homeowners at a time of economic hardship. The Land Act 1958 wound up the granting of Residence Areas, and under Sections 173 and 174 of the Act, existing landholders in Residence Areas were able to purchase their properties from the government. Figure 2: Aerial view of Golden Square in 1934. The subject area is in the top right. Image: Charles Daniel Pratt, State Library Victoria. Precinct history A number of residential precincts in Golden Square, Bendigo and Eaglehawk are representative of residential growth in the late Victorian, Edwardian and Inter-war period whose history are not necessarily reliant on gold mining in Bendigo. In a number of cases these areas were on Crown land that had formerly been part of large mining operations that were no longer operating. A number of the individual blocks within these areas were originally held under Miner’s Rights giving the occupier access to land within the Miner’s Right Residency areas at very little cost. Secure occupancy of the land then allowed them to obtain housing loans to build new homes at a house and land price that was affordable. Houses such as 23 and 25 Fir Street, commonly referred to as Vahland Villas”, were available for purchase “off the plan” from the Sandhurst Mutual Permanent Investment and Building Society. 4 Minerva Heritage 2020 Within the subject precinct the following information was found. William Londey had a plant nursery in the area now occupied by 26, 28 and 30 fir Street, and 68 Panton Street. According to the Rates, in 1902 – High, Fir and Panton streets, land and nursery, owned by William Londey, NAV £16.9 In the Rates for 1906 Londey, William Nurseryman had Land & House Panton St & Fir St, and in 1907, Land and Nursery, Fir and Panton Streets, NAV £16.