House

Parent Place or Precinct

25394 Union and Redfern Heritage Area

Statement of Significance

For information on the significance of the Union and Redfern Heritage Area refer to the Local Planning Policy for the Heritage Area.

Physical Description

173 Hamersley Road was designed as a late example of a modest Federation Queen Anne villa, with some detailing (such as the verandah piers and the main entrance) influenced by the Federation Bungalow style. Key elements include: • Asymmetrical plan, with a stepped façade that addresses the intersection of Hamersley Road and Union Street. • Two, prominent projecting wings, one facing Hamersley Road on the western side of the main façade and one facing Union Street at the southern end of the return verandah. Each of these features a rectangular bay window, with three multi-paned casement windows to the face of the bay and a single casement window on each side. These are framed by rendered corner piers and a projecting rendered sill, and sit over a splayed, rock-faced stone plinth. Each of the bay windows is shaded by a raked tiled awning, supported on robust, square profile, timber brackets. • Stepped façade between the projecting wings, creating a deep verandah area. The main entrance is located adjacent to the western wing. This is framed by highlights and half-height sidelights – all with rectangular leadlight panels. On the eastern side of the entry vestibule, where the façade steps back a second time, there is a semi-circular highlight with a stained glass panel. At the rear of the verandah, where it abuts the eastern wing, there is a pair of multi-paned French doors. • Tuck-pointed brickwork to the main façade with two contrasting rendered string courses – one at window sill height and one above the door-head height. • Contrasting, rock-faced stone plinths to the window bays and verandah piers. • Gabled-hipped roof clad with red terracotta tiles and featuring curved terracotta finials to the primary gables. This extends in a continuous alignment over the deep corner verandah. • Tall face brick chimneys with a corbelled caps and terracotta chimney pots. • Flying gables to the projecting wings. Each of these gables has wide eaves extending over a bay window. The face of each gable is clad with flush panel, and finished with vertical timber battens. • Corner verandah extending between the two projecting wings. The paired, square timber posts and the low, raked stone pylons with rendered caps are a distinctive feature of the house. The late twentieth century additions (which include a triple garage along the Union Street boundary) have been detailed to match the original house. The house is set back approximately 4m from the front boundary, which is defined by a low, masonry wall with tall masonry piers (returning part way along Union Street). A mature garden of mixed shrubs and trees largely screens the house from casual streetscape views. Based on a streetscape inspection the building appears to be in good condition.

History

Perth Suburban Lot 255 was purchased by the Intercolonial Investment Land and Building Company Ltd of Sydney in August 1890. Two years later it was transferred to James Chesters of 155 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne, estate agent. By 1894 Chesters had subdivided this land as Deposited Plan 899, with 42 lots laid out around Queen Street (soon renamed Union Street). The Subiaco Rates Books indicate that Lots 1 & 2, with frontages to Hamersley Road, were transferred to Alexander Bruce Dick Bell in 1915/1916, but the land title wasn't formally transferred to him until August 1919. Bell appears to have held the property as an investment and a house was not listed in the Post Office Directories until 1924, when it was occupied by Mrs Maud Mary Roberts. The owner and co-occupant of the house at that time, was Maud’s daughter, Miss Mabel Maud Roberts, who was variously described as a draper or spinster. Maud’s brother, Gilbert Roberts, had already settled next door, buying the house on Lots 3 and 4 (177 Hamersley Road) in c.1919 and moving there in c.1920. The Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Plan for the street (as amended in 1955) shows that the area between the two houses was laid out as a tennis court (straddling the boundary between Lots 2 & 3). Mrs Roberts died in 1954, aged 91 years (approximately five years after Gilbert), but Mabel Roberts and Gilbert’s widow, Hilda Roberts, continued to live side-by-side until Mabel’s death in 1969. Arial photographs show that the area between the two houses remained as an open grassed area in 1985, but that the central boundary had been defined and both houses extended towards this side boundary by 1995. These works included additions along the western side of 173 Hamersley Road and major additions at the rear (which partly face onto the Union Street frontage).

Condition

Based on a streetscape inspection the building appears to be in a good condition.

Uses

Historic Themes

Creation Date

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