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Acton Cottages 16 Lennox Crossing
Place Identification NumberAC0015 Site CategoryHistorical European Site Site TypeBuilding LocationBlock 4, Section 34 Acton ACT. Lennox Crossing, Australian National University, Acton, ACT 0200 ANU Heritage ClassificationOwnershipAustralian National University Heritage Listings
History
Built in 1913 and designed by architect J.S. Murdoch, this house retains outhouses, remnants of original fencing and some of its garden. The loosebox for horses was built in 1936 when Hilton, a mounted constable from Duntroon moved into the house. The garden would also appear to date from this time as before occupying the house Hilton had requested the removal of four large trees and the lopping of three others with the intention of establishing a garden. Large cypress line both sides of the drive, planted as windbreaks or are possibly overgrown hedges, while the grounds contain many plants typical of the era of the house; lilac, iris, violets, vinca, agapanthus, Jasminum mesneyi, photinia and privet. Fruit trees, including a very old fig and a persimmon, combine with the ‘chookhouse’ to show the need for great self sufficiency in the early days of the settlement. As late as 1956 the orchard was still quite extensive. Physical DescriptionThis house is one of two surviving cottages on the east of Lennox Crossing/Liversidge Street. This building is the only survivor of the first four cottages built on the site for married staff. The floor plan appears to be the same as demolished cottages 12 and 14 Lennox Crossing. However, Number 16 has a verandah (now enclosed) on the north side, and drainage plans show that Numbers 12 and 14 had only the eastern verandah.
It was built in 1913 and is a timber building on a rendered brick base. It has a corrugated iron roof and casement windows. A verandah at the north has been enclosed, and it extends to the east side, addressing the river, and remains open along this façade.
There is a detached laundry, woodroom and WC; a corrugated iron stable; and a semi-detached garage on the adjacent boundary. This has been used as a flat, but it is now vacant.
The walls are rusticated weatherboard, originally painted a deep red/brown. The rendered brick base includes ‘egg-crate’ terracotta vents for cross ventilation. There are louvred metal wall vents under the eaves. Timber windows are casements, and most have hopper transoms above. Each sash is divided into three with glazing bars.
The roof has a ridge which runs north/south, and gablets have louvred vent which provide ventilation to the roof space. Rafter ends are expressed, and hold quadrant gutters which originally terminated around the ends of the barges. The front façade has a prominent gabled roof adjacent to the verandah. This is lined with notched, painted shingles, The eaves are lined with v-jointed boards above the rafters. The round galvanised downpipes are recent renewals.
Cappings and barge moulds are rolled, with supporting quadrant moulds mounted onto the barge boards, immediately adjacent to the barge roll. The barge boards are simple square dressed, and have a chamfer along the bottom outside arris.
The western end of the house is under a skillion roof.
The verandah has a hardwood tongue and grooved floor supported on concrete piers. It has been enclosed with boards and casement windows to provide a sleepout at the north. A small room in the corner is improvised with asbestos cement sheeting, exposed studwork and a braced and ledged door. The basin suggests a kitchen, and in turn a sublet flat. Stairs are provided at the west end, and at the east, opposite the front door. There is a small cellar under the verandah, accessed by a manhole near the front door. The posts are simple square, dressed timbers with a rounded bottom corner, providing a simple yet effective element to the design. The ceiling is of beaded boards. The balustrade is built with a twin-sloped sill, simple square balusters and a rounded handrail.
The brick chimneys have a roughcast finish, and terminate with red brick cappings in stretcher bond, without decoration.
The house has three bedrooms, a dining room, sitting room, bathroom, kitchen and pantry. A short passage connects the back door and the living room, and gives access to the bathroom and a bedroom under a skillion roof and raked ceilings.
The interior is highly intact, with fireplaces, kitchen furnishings, pantry shelves and a bathroom with ripple iron, and lath and plaster fixed to timber framed walls.
The living room has a dominant face brick fireplace, executed in tuck pointed bullnose brick. The surround is in dark stained timber, with paired brackets and built-in shelves at the sides of the chimney breast. The corners of the chimney breast have strongly expressed ovolo staff moulds, terminating with a larks tongue. The walls are lath and plaster (onto a timber frame) and have been papered. Unfortunately the paper has been painted over, but the original pattern does show through the paint. A picture rail provides a distinctive separation between the paper and the painted wall above.
There is brown linoleum on the floor, enhancing the dramatic contrast of dark timber with creamy/off white painted surfaces. The original paper would have added a flash of colour and vigour to the room.
Doors are four paneled, with a novel, concave inlay mould with an elliptical curve and a stepped quirk. The architraves have a lamb’s tongue, which is a curious reference to a colonial style, within a house that was highly contemporary. The doors are grained, and fitted with rim locks.
The ceiling is also lath and plaster and has decorative strapping.
The hall repeats much of the feel of the living room, but with the paper intact. The built-in cupboards are intact, and important elements in this space. Curiously, the lamb’s tongue mouldings have been used on the construction of the cupboards departing from the mouldings in the doors. The entry door has a pair of lower panels, and a nine-pane glazed upper panel. This provides a somber source of light to this area, and enhances the dramatic contrast and tones in the finishes.
The two front bedrooms have lath and plaster wall and brown linoleum on floorboards. There is a picture rail and a Victorian pattern skirting which has been adapted to include a small scotia. Windows have internally mounted flyscreens in timber frames. Wall vents are plaster, and have an Art Noveau floral pattern. Fragments of the original electrical installation remain. The north-east bedroom has a brick fireplace, similar to that in the dining room.
The passage is lined with rusticated weatherboards, and the ceiling is lined with double v-jointed boards. The floor is timber, which has been painted red, and has a lino runner.
The dining room has a bullnose brick fireplace with timber mantle. The chimney breast has the same features as that in the living room. There is a picture rail ands strapped ceiling.
The kitchen is highly intact, and expressive of the original activities in such a room. The ‘Metters Canberra’ is not original, but fits into a brick hearth. The built in cupboards have sliding sashes, glazed, with decorative patterned transfers over the glass. The original sink has been replaced. The ceiling is strapped, there is no lino on the floor, and fragments of the original electrical installation survive, showing timber mounting blocks and round roses.
The adjacent pantry survives with the original timber shelving, supported with timber strutted brackets made of simple, squared, dressed sections. The raked ceiling has square, set cornices and the skirtings combine a small scotia with a gentle ovolo, which is typical of the Edwardian period. The casement window does not have a transom, and the sash is reduced, but similar to larger windows elsewhere in the building.
The bathroom has lath and plaster wall above a ripple iron lining. Exposed chrome plated plumbing has been renovated, and the chip heater has been removed. The ceiling is fibrous plaster. The room strongly displays its original character and function.
The laundry building has a timber frame, weatherboard linings and a monopitch, iron roof. The flue is roughcast. The building sits on a concrete floor. The copper is still in place, with a rendered brick flue. There are double, concrete tubs on brick piers. The room is lined with beaded boards and shelves are built to match the construction of those in the pantry. The double doors are braced and ledged construction, with v-jointed boards. There is an adjoining wood store room, and a WC. The WC had an overhead cistern which has been replaced. It has beaded board linings, a braced and ledged door and a fixed glass louvred window.
There is a vertically fixed, corrugated iron lined stable with a hardwood stud frame (it was used by the policeman for his horse). It has a concrete floor and a small fixed glass louvred window with protective mesh internally. The stable doors are well crafted, using braced and ledged construction.
The original garage is a semi-detached building on a neighbouring boundary. It has been extended and refitted to provide a flat with four rooms. It has a timber frame, lined externally with rusticated weatherboards originally, and beveled boards on the extension. It had a shared gabled roof with a low pitch, which is no longer present.
It has a concrete floor, and the kitchen ceiling is lined with painted bituminous paper. Sequential Summary of Use
Statements of SignificanceCHL Criteria A: The place has significant heritage value because of the place’s importance in the course, or pattern, of Australia’s natural or cultural history: The Acton Conservation Area is important for the significant role it played as the administrative, residential and social centre of Canberra, from 1911 to the 1920s, prior to the construction of the city to the plan by Walter Burley Griffin. A number of firsts for the new city are sited within the Acton Conservation Area including the hostel known as Lennox House; the Canberra Community Hospital and a diplomatic mission, housed in Old Canberra House.
Attributes All buildings, roads, tracks, vegetation and planning dating from Acton's initial construction phase, including the Acton Cottages.
CHL Criteria B: The place has significant heritage value because of the place’s possession of uncommon, rare or endangered aspects of Australia’s natural or cultural history: The extant fabric, roads, tracks, remnant indigenous vegetation and introduced plantings and building setbacks and alignments of the former Acton 'village' contribute to the most extensive surviving cultural landscape from that period.
The Acton Cottages, erected 1913-1927, are individually significant for the two housing subdivisions associated with the early development of Canberra which accommodated high and middle level public servants. The earliest subdivision in Canberra developed between 1913-1914 on what are now Liversidge Street and Lennox Crossing, and which together form one of the few surviving Canberra roads that predate the Griffin plan. This subdivision contains three surviving cottages from 1913 which were the first, albeit temporary, government houses constructed for the new city:
The cottage at Number 7 Liversidge Street; The cottage at Number 8 Liversidge Street; and The cottage at Number16 Lennox Crossing which is individually important as a highly intact example of the earliest surviving government housing erected in Canberra. The significance of Number16 Lennox Crossing is reinforced by the early garden and intact outhouses including a loose box and standard buggy shed and stalls, the latter shared with the former adjacent property.
Attributes The extant fabric, roads, tracks, remnant indigenous vegetation and introduced plantings and building setbacks and alignments of the former Acton 'village', including the subdivision of Acton Cottages in Liversidge Street and Lennox Crossing.
CHL Criteria D: The place has significant heritage value because of the place’s importance in demonstrating the principal characteristics of: (i) a class of Australia’s natural or cultural places; or (ii) a class of Australia’s natural or cultural environments: The Conservation Area demonstrates the provision of accommodation according to socio-economic status. High-level public servants and married officers were accommodated high on the ridge in Old Canberra House and the Acton Cottages.
Attributes The Acton Cottages.
CHL Criteria H: The place has significant heritage value because of the place’s special association with the life or works of a person, or group of persons, of importance in Australia’s natural or cultural history: The Acton Conservation Area is demonstrably associated with architects J.S. Murdoch, Commonwealth Architect, and H.M. Rolland (1912-1927), resident architect in 1912; Colonel Miller, First Administrator of the Federal Territory (1912-1916); and C.R. Casboulte, executive architect to the Federal Capital Commission.
Attributes Architectural design evident in the Acton Cottages.
ACT Heritage List Criteria A: It demonstrates a high degree of technical or creativeachievement (or both), by showing qualities of innovation, discovery, invention or an exceptionally fine level of application of existing techniques or approaches: It is significant as one of the first Federal Capital Style timber bungalows to be constructed in Canberra. It is important as one of a group of buildings of the era of the Federal Capital’s commencement. It includes a rare use of lath and plaster ceiling and walls in a 20th century building in the ACT.
ACT Heritage List Criteria C: It is important as evidence of a distinctive way of life, taste, tradition, religion, land use, custom, process, design or function that is no longer practised, is in danger of being lost or is of exceptional interest: It is highly significant for its ability to demonstrate a distinctive way of life, taste, landuse and custom no longer practiced. The cellar (for food storage) is significant as evidence of domestic lifestyle. It is a comparatively intact example of its type.
ACT Heritage List Criteria E: It is a rare or unique example of its kind, or is rare or unique in its comparative intactness: It is highly significant for its ability to demonstrate a distinctive way of life, taste, landuse and custom no longer practiced. The cellar (for food storage) is significant as evidence of domestic lifestyle. It is a comparatively intact example of its type.
ACT Heritage List Criteria F: It is a notable example of a kind of place or object and demonstrates the main characteristics of that kind: The site has value for its ability to indicate a changing cultural landscape and for its interpretative potential.
ACT Heritage List Criteria G: It has strong or special associations with a person, group, event, development or cultural phase in local or national history: The site has significance for its associations with people responsible for the shaping of the face of Canberra. This includes J.S. Murdoch who was the architect for the house.
ACT Heritage List Criteria I: It had provided, or is likely to provide, information that will contribute significantly to a wider understanding of the natural or cultural history of the ACT because of its use or potential use as a research site or object, teaching site or object, type locality or benchmark site: The site has value for its ability to indicate a changing cultural landscape and for its interpretative potential. Conservation Documents
Consultation Requirements
Works and Activities
Cross-References to Other RecordsAC0014 – Acton Cottages General AC0016 – Acton Cottages 3 Liversidge Street AC0017 – Acton Cottages 5 Liversidge Street AC0018 – Acton Cottages 7 Liversidge Street AC0019 – Acton Cottages 8 Liversidge Street AC0020 – Acton Cottages 14 Balmain Lane AC0021 – Acton Cottages 16 Balmain Lane AC0022 – Acton Cottages 18 Balmain Lane AC0023 – Acton Cottages 20 Balmain Crescent AC0024 – Acton Cottages 22 Balmain Crescent AC0025 – Acton Cottages 26 Balmain Crescent AC0026 – Acton Cottages 28 Balmain Crescent Links to External AgenciesCommonwealth Heritage List - Acton Conservation Area Royal Australian Institute of Architects Register of Significant Twentieth Century Buildings |
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