House

Parent Place or Precinct

25394 Union and Redfern Heritage Area

Statement of Significance

The place has cultural heritage significance for the following reasons: • For its aesthetic value as a representative example of a well-designed Federation Queen Anne villa of the early twentieth century, designed to a style and scale suited to the professional/business classes. • The place has historical significance as part of the earliest phase of the development of Subiaco with brick villas. • For its historical significance as the oldest remaining house along the full length of Heytesbury Road. • For its historical significance as the home of Austin Bastow (an architect and Mayor of Subiaco, 1900-1902 and 1905-1906)

Physical Description

116 Heytesbury Road is a single storey rendered masonry dwelling with a corrugated steel hip and gable roof displaying characteristics of the Federation Queen Anne style of architecture. The residence has an asymmetrical form with a projecting bay addressing the street. The roof has a rendered chimney with string course detailing. The projecting gable has half-timbered panelling with a swirl-rendered infill and a rectangular louvered vent. A corrugated steel bullnose verandah extends along the recessed portion of the front facade supported by turned timber posts and features a concrete base with patterned tiles. The main entry is recessed and features a timber framed door with a full width highlight and narrow sidelights. French doors open onto the verandah to the east of the main entrance and feature highlights and sidelights. Within the projecting bay is a triple casement window with multi-paned leadlight highlights. The front garden is predominately a grass area with dense perimeter planting on the inside of the fence line partially obscuring the place from the street. The place is enclosed to the front by a rendered masonry pier fence with a contemporary steel blade infill and a central steel gate. A brick paved driveway is located to the west of the site leading to an attached contemporary garage with a cantilevered carport. The place is serviced by a rear laneway.

History

On 13 March 1883, the Western Australian government announced it would survey a section of the Perth Commonage into suburban lots and that these would be made available for private sale. Perth Suburban Lot 256 was purchased by the Intercolonial Investment Land and Building Company Ltd of Sydney in August 1890. However, no development was undertaken at that time and, in June 1896 the whole of the property was transferred to James Thomas Peet and Austin Bastow of Melbourne, Estate Agents. By September of that year, Peet and Bastow had subdivided this land as Deposited Plan 938, with 42 residential allotments laid out along parts of Hensman Road, Hamersley Road, Beryl (later Redfern) Street and Heytesbury Road. Lots 37 to 42 of this subdivision were later developed as 116 to 122 Heytesbury Road. Austin Bastow moved to Perth in c.1896 and in 1899 was working as an architect, with an office in the city and a private residence, ‘St Helens’, in Rokeby Road. However, in April of that year, ‘St Helens’ was advertised for sale and in June the family advertised for general staff using the address “Bastow, Hetyesbuty Road’. The readily available evidence therefore suggests that Austin Bastow built a new house for himself on Lots 41 and 42 (116 Heytesbury Road) in 1899. In 1901, when street listings were first provided in the Post Office Directory for Heytesbury Road, this was one of only four houses identified for the full length of the street (the other three of which have since been demolished). Austin Bastow lived here with his wife, Mary, until 1906. During this time the house, which was named ‘Wendoree’, served as the mayoral residence in 1900-1902 and 1905-1906. In December 1906, 116 Heytesbury Road was sold to Christina Ellen Ball. It was then occupied for about five years as the home of Christina and Charles Ball, who had been married in the Pilbara region in 1901 and had five children: Stanley (1902), Herbert (1903), Iris (c.1906), Alec (1908), and Mena (1910). Charles was a pastoralist, who held the lease for Muccan Station in the Marble Bar region in partnership with Michael Corbett from the 1890s until 1912. His wife, Christina, was the daughter of another North-West pioneer, Christopher Coppin of Eel Creek station. In late 1910 Charles Ball purchased a large house on an estate along the Swan River at Redcliffe, and 116 Heytesbury Road was subsequently rented out. By 1916, it had been divided into two flats and there were various occupants over the years, but in c.1928 Charles and Christina returned to the house, sharing it at that time with Alec (a law clerk) and Mena (home duties). Charles Ball died in April 1940 aged 77, and from c.1941-1949 the house was occupied by Walter McNamara (a railway employee), his wife, Ethel, their son Walter Jr (tiler) and their daughter (or daughter-in-law) Phyllis (home duties). For at least part of this time, they also shared the house with Ethel’s mother, Mrs Sarah Plummer (who died in 1946). A comparison of current and historical aerial photographs (the earliest of which is dated 1948) suggests that the building envelope at the front of the house has remained largely the same, with the exception of a carport added on the western side of the house in the period c.1985-1995. Over time, additions have been made to the rear of the house, including major works in c.2001. The primary occupants of the property from its time of construction until c.1949 included: • 1901-1906: Austin Bastow (architect) and his wife Mary • 1907-1911: Charles Ball (pastoralist/squatter) and his wife Christina • 1912-1914: James Campbell Muir (manager, telephone exchange) • 1915-1916: Rev Arthur S. J. Fry (Methodist minister) • 1917: Robert Vincent Butler (clerk) and Annie Jane Butler (home duties) • 1918: William Ernest Shelton (schoolmaster); and Mrs Annie Jane Butler • 1919: William Ernest Shelton (schoolmaster); and Archibald Gilchrist Clayton • 1920-1922: William Ernest Shelton (schoolmaster); and Oliver Charles Young (linotype operator) • 1923: James V. Carruthers; and W.H. Bond • 1924: Horace L. Dobble • 1925-1926: Henry Whitehead (agent), Edith Adelaide Whitehead (home duties), and Kenneth Whitehead (salesman); Thomas William Scott (tailor) and Ivy Jeanette Scott (home duties) • 1927-1928: Henry Whitehead (agent) Edith Adelaide Whitehead (home duties) and Kenneth Whitehead (salesman) • 1928-1939: Charles Ball (retired) and his wife Christina • 1940-1949: Walter Joseph McNamara (railway employee) and his wife Ethel

Integrity/Authenticity

Integrity - High Authenticity - Medium - The rendering of the main façade and the extension under the return verandah have impacted on the authenticity and traditional character of the place.

Uses

Historic Themes

Creation Date

Publish place record online (inHerit):

Last Update