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

6 Union Street was designed as a modest example of a Federation Queen Anne house. Key elements include:
• Simple asymmetrical plan, with a projecting wing on the western side of the main façade.
• Rendered façade (almost certainly originally tuck-pointed brickwork with one or more rendered string courses).
• Gabled-hipped roof, clad with corrugated metal sheeting.
This features louvered gablet vents at either end of the main east-west ridgeline, a squat rendered brick chimney with a corbelled cap, and a prominent street front gable.
The gable end extends over the projecting wing and features a roughcast rendered face, shallow triangular timber baseboard and turned timber finial.
• Shallow rectangular window bay to the projecting wing.
This features a bank of three vertically proportioned windows with traditional chamfered frames. The glazing of each window is divided into seven panes with a large single pane to the bottom section and six small panes to the upper section.
Below the window there is a curved rendered sill over a shallow-raked plinth with a rough cast rendered face.
• Raked verandah extending across the full width of the main façade.
This has a concrete floor, turned timber posts, a balustrade with square balusters, and a shallow valance of square timber balustrettes.
• Centrally located entrance, to the east of the projecting wing.
This door is recessed back from the main façade, behind a semi-circular archway, and features a traditional highlight and high waisted sidelights (all with a stained glass panels)
• French doors opening onto the verandah from the room to the east of the main entrance.
Note: based on the proportions of the opening, this element has been modified.
The house was built up to the western boundary and has a parapet wall along this side. It is set approx. 4.5m back from the front boundary, which is defined by a scalloped timber picket fence, backed by mature shrubs.
Based on a streetscape inspection the building appears to be in good condition.

History

A Certificate of Title for Perth Suburban Lot 256 was issued in the name of The Intercolonial Investment Land and Building Company Ltd of Sydney NSW on 22 August 1890. This was bounded by Hamersley Road to the north, Hensman Road to the west and Heytesbury Road to the south. In June 1896 the whole of this property was transferred to James Thomas Peet and Austin Bastow of Melbourne, Estate Agents, and by August of that year Peet and Bastow had subdivided this as Deposited Plan 938, with Lots 25 to 30 along the northern side of Beryl Street (later renamed Redfern Street) and Lots 31 to 36 along the southern side.
By 1903, Lots 25 to 30 were all owned by Annie Wilson who, at that time, was living at 12 Redfern Street with her husband Charles (whose occupation was variously given over time as labourer, carpenter and railway employee). Annie died in 1912 and, according to the Subiaco Rates Books, the property was then transferred to Mrs Eliza Cameron (who was Annie’s daughter by her first marriage). When a house was finally built in 1917/18, the owner was recorded in the Rates Book as Florence Hawke.
In its external form the house is a mirror image of 4 Redfern Street, which is believed to have been built by Thomas Starks in 1917 – and it is possible that he also built #6. Starks trained as a carpenter, but by 1910 was listed in the Post Office Directory under the category Builders & Contractors, with premises in Axon Street, Subiaco. The readily available evidence confirms that Starks was involved in at least some speculative residential development in Subiaco, and houses that can be reasonably attributed to him also include 6 Union Street.
The new house at 6 Redfern Street (known as “Overdale”) was occupied by Ellen Rosina (Rose) Hawke and Florence Edith Isabel Hawke, who had been born in Kapunda, SA, in 1857 and 1870, respectively. In c.1927 the Hawke sisters moved to Churchill Avenue (the same street in which their brother, Clarence, was living) and 6 Redfern Street was purchased by James Francis Pollitt (accountant). James settled here with his wife, Mabel, and their three children, Wilfred, Greta and Graham (who died in a motor cycle accident in 1947, aged 22 years). By 1954, shortly prior to his death (aged 68 years), James and Mabel Pollitt had retired to Bicton.
Occupants of the property from its time of construction until c.1950 included:
c.1919-1927 Ellen Rosina (Rose) Hawke and Florence Edith Isabel Hawke
1928-c.1950 James Francis Pollitt (accountant) owner/occupier and his wife, Mabel Gertrude Pollitt.

Integrity/Authenticity

Note: The rendering 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.