House

Parent Place or Precinct

25394 Union and Redfern Heritage Area

Statement of Significance

The Union and Redfern Street Heritage Area is significant for:
Aesthetic Value:
The area contains aesthetically pleasing streetscapes with a strong heritage character. In particular, cohesive streetscapes have been created by a limited palette of materials and styles.
The area contains many good, representative, suburban examples of Federation Queen Anne houses and Federation Bungalows. These include both gentlemen’s villas and modest suburban houses, and collectively illustrate a gradual evolution in architectural detailing of these places between 1899 and the early Inter-war years.
Historic Value:
The residential subdivision of this area represents the early development activities of Sydney and Melbourne based real estate agents and property developers. In this context it helps to illustrate the status of Western Australia as a place of opportunity during the gold rush era of the late nineteenth century – attracting significant interest and investment from the eastern states.
The collection of houses in the heritage area helps to demonstrate the manner in which the family residences of professional men and business owners (such as senior civil servants and merchants) existed side by side with the smaller houses of semi-professional and tradespeople.
The collection of houses in the heritage area helps to illustrate the scale and standard of housing considered appropriate for these families in the early twentieth century.
The area was a place of residence for a number of people who were prominent in the local business community or were otherwise public identities of the early to mid-twentieth century.

Physical Description

2 Campbell Street was designed as a simple, single storey suburban residence. Architecturally it includes some modest interpretation of elements derived from the Federation Queen Anne and Federation Bungalow styles, but does not clearly represent any of the major architectural styles.
The house has a hipped and gabled, tiled roof with projecting eaves, exposed rafters and plain brick chimneys.
The main facade has a prominent gabled wing on the northern side and a deep porch on the southern side. This facade has tuck-pointed brickwork to door head height, capped by a projecting brick course, with a deep panel of roughcast render over. There is also a plain rendered string course at sill height. These elements originally provided strongly contrasting colours and textures to the facade, but the effect has been greatly diminished by the application of green paint to all of the wall surfaces, with the exception of the string course, window sill and joinery.
The projecting wing features a wide gable finished with vertical timber battens. This sits above a shallow rectangular window bay, with a centrally located bank of three narrow casement windows. Below the window there is a moulded and rendered sill, which extends the full width of the bay and forms the cap to a splayed base. Further texture and contrast was provided by plain rendered corners and a textured face to this splayed element.
The deep, square porch is defined by a separate hipped roofline and plain square posts. The main entrance (on the northern side) and French doors (on the eastern side) have both been altered over time.
The house is set back approximately 5.5m from the boundary and the area in front of the porch has been paved as a car-parking bay. The remainder of the front yard has been laid out as a small cottage garden. The front fence has tall rendered masonry posts and a low rendered masonry wall, with metal infill panels.
Based on a streetscape inspection the building appears to be in good condition.

History

Perth Suburban Lot 253 was purchased by John Brandon, John Thomas Lawler and Thomas Tate of Sydney in October 1889 and, about six months later, it was transferred to Thomas Read of Sydney, solicitor. Read did not develop the 5 acre site and it was on-sold to the Intercolonial Investment Land and Building Company of Sydney in October 1897.
Building lots in Deposited Plan 1933 began to be sold along the Rokeby Road frontage of PSL 253 from May 1898 and the first sites to be sold along Campbell Street (Lots 31 and 32) were transferred to a new owner in June 1899. However, development was slow and the first houses were not built until 1903/04.
Lot 34 was sold to John Downes in February 1908, but the available information indicates that this house was not built until c.1920, when it was first occupied by Raymond Vivian Axon (a clerk). Axon’s construction of the house (or its purchase as a newly built dwelling) appears to have been in anticipation of his marriage to Phyllis Hubble in February 1921. Raymond and Phyllis remained here for the rest of their married lives and, over time, shared the house with their three children, Raymond (jnr), Nada and Edna.
Following Phyllis’ death in 1966, Raymond, snr, continued to live here until at least 1972 (until, or shortly before, his death in 1973).

Integrity/Authenticity

Note: The painting of the main façade has impacted on the authenticity and traditional character of the place. However, the underlying form and detailing remains consistent with the original design and the key elements of the traditional streetscape.

Condition

Good

Uses

Creation Date

Publish place record online (inHerit):

Last Update

Disclaimer

This information is provided voluntarily as a public service. The information provided is made available in good faith and is derived from sources believed to be reliable and accurate. However, the information is provided solely on the basis that readers will be responsible for making their own assessment of the matters discussed herein and are advised to verify all relevant representations, statements and information.