Chesterfield Inn (fmr), Rockingham

Statement of Significance

The place is among the earliest land grants in the City of Rockingham and the house is one of the area's oldest built structures. It is also the oldest commercial building in the area. As an early wayside inn, it is of some importance to the history of Western Australia. The place has social value for its association with a number of the district's pioneers.

Physical Description

Chesterfield House is a building that has evidently developed from successive additions to a core of four rooms and a central passage. There are additions to the front, sides and rear of this core part. In plan, the building forms a square with verandah recesses at the middle of the north (front), east and west sides. The house is a ruin, having been badly damaged by fire some years ago and thereafter abandoned. Externally, the house is rendered with a buff coloured cement based mortar, the walls are mainly constructed of rubble limestone. The toilet outhouse at the rear of the building is constructed of brick, as are the five chimneystacks that project above the roof line. The roof is clad with corrugated iron, with a framed structure of hardwood. Although there is evidence to suggest that the building had a cellar, no evidence of it was found. (Further detail, including notes on the joinery, ceilings and characteristics of individual rooms, as well as the building's condition, may be found in the Conservation Plan). The dairy is located some 150 meters north of Chesterfield House. It is constructed of limestone masonry walls with brick quoins to the corners and window reveals. Concrete lintels have been used over door and window openings. Concrete has also been used for the floors throughout the dairy. The roof is framed with hardwood, hipped in form, and clad with corrugated galvanised iron. Most sheeting is rusted, and a number of sheets are missing. An open sided skillion structure is attached to the southern half of the west wall, returning around the south side. Part of this structure has collapsed. There are five rooms within the masonry part of the dairy, the largest of which forms the southern half of the building and contains the remains of tubular metal milking stalls.

History

The history of Chesterfield House has been traced back to 1855 when James Herbert commenced trading from premises known as the 'Bush Inn', but it is not known whether this inn was located on the present site of Chesterfield House. When the present site, Cockburn Sound Location 71, was surveyed in August 1857 it was noted that a building already stood on the property. The Herbert family owned the inn until the 1870s. John and Alexander Forrest are said to have frequently visited the place. Records indicate that for all but a couple of years, the inn traded continuously until 1912 when the license was transferred to the newly established Naval Base Hotel. The inn was known as the 'Rockingham Arms' from around 1857 until the 1890s, when it was renamed the Chesterfield Inn (after the proprietor, John Chester). A fire caused considerable damage to the hotel circa 1910. It was rebuilt, incorporating the original masonry walls but with additions on the north side of the building and with a different roof shape. The original building is believed to have had a steeply pitched roof wit a loft, but it was rebuilt with two lower hipped roofs side by side. After 1912 the principal use of the place was as a farmhouse, and is thought to have also served as the district's post office during the years 1915 to 1918. During the Great War the property was apparently used as an encampment for the 10th Light Horse. The Ward family acquired the place in 1932 and established it as a dairy farm. A new dairy was constructed circa 1950, north of the house, and this building is still extant. The Wards sold the place in 1967 and in the 1970s the government resumed the property as part of its strategic planning for the area. The house was vacant for some time, but then it was tenanted out to an organisation that used the house as a youth refuge. In 1992 a fire damaged one of the bedrooms of the place, and the tenants were evicted. No repairs were undertaken, and while the place remained vacant it became subject to acts of vandalism. Another fire, circa 1994, caused extensive damage to the roof and remaining internal timberwork. Because the fire was concentrated in the roof, the masonry of the building is still in sound condition.

Integrity/Authenticity

Integrity - Many of the values identified with the place are sustainable, providing that Chesterfield House is restored to asound and habitable state. If left in its present state, the condition of the place will rapidly deteriorate and eventually the physical form of the place would be lost – which would in effect destroy the cultural significance of Chesterfield House as a physical entity. Its significance is bound up with both the site and the physical fabric of the house. Some value is derived from the context, which includes a rural landscape (that will shortly be changed to industrial) and a relationship to the dairy and other sites of early settlement (some of which are likely to be retained). Authenticity - There is insufficient evidence to determine whether or not the layout and general form of Chesterfield House is representative of wayside inns or hotels of the colonial era, although there is some indication that other places of this type were of a similar design. Chesterfield House is a place that has been subject to various extensions and alterations throughout its history. Most of these changes have been executed in sympathetic manner, and the present form of the building has a pleasing aesthetic quality. The changes that are evident in the building fabric may be viewed as an historical text, documenting the evolution of the building from the 1850s to the present. Given that most of the fabric is significant as an expression of the place’s long history of occupation and changing uses, it may also be considered as ‘authentic’. The dairy building appear to have sustained some changes while it was being used as a dairy, but has not been modified since. Apart from the bails and copper, most of the fixtures and equipment relating to its use as a dairy have been removed.

Condition

Two fires have reduced Chesterfield House to a masonry shell with only part of a roof and remnants of its joinery remaining. The north-western quarter of the building ahs suffered the greatest damage, but because the fire was concentrated in the roof space, the walls of the building are mostly in sound condition. Painted finishes and plasterwork are to varying degrees damaged. Floors in most areas were not affected by the fire, but most have subsequently been destroyed by the deliberate and unauthorised removal of salvageable timber. Doors, lining boards from the door reveals and the moulded architraves facing into the central passage have similarly been removed after the fires. Plumbing and electrical services in the building have been rendered inoperable.

Uses

Historic Themes

Creation Date

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