5 and 7 Higham Road HAWTHORN EAST, BOROONDARA CITY

5 and 7 Higham Road HAWTHORN EAST, BOROONDARA CITY

All information on this page is maintained by Boroondara City. Click below for their website and contact details.

Boroondara City

5 and 7 Higham Road, Hawthorn East

Statement of Significance

• Additional Place Information

  • Physical Description 1

    5 and 7 Higham Road HAWTHORN EAST, BOROONDARA CITY - Physical Description 1

    Description & Integrity
    The houses at 5 & 7 Higham Road are Edwardian Queen Anne villas which retain roof massing from the Victorian Italianate style. Walls and chimneys are of tuckpointed red brick with roughcast render banding, and the hipped and gabled roof forms are clad in slates. Both houses have a return verandah, set between projecting bays on the front and south side elevations, a plan form typical of larger Victorian and Edwardian houses. Their close similarity in form and details makes it clear that Higham sisters engaged the same designer (whether this was an architect or master builder).
    
    The houses display characteristic decorative details of the Queen Anne style, including gables to the projecting bays filled with half-timbering and topped with a turned timber finial-pendant, box bay windows beneath the gables, turned-timber verandah posts with delicate curved brackets and a frieze of turned timber balusters, and scalloped render aprons below windows.

     

    As noted, the pitch of the hipped roof and the use of the M-hipped roof plan, as well as the slate cladding are typical of the Victorian period. The verandah roof form is also more typical of the Victorian Italianate, with a separate roof set below the eaves (instead of continuous with the main roof). The eaves are embellished with cast-cement brackets alternating with cast paterae, again more Victorian in form. Windows are double-hung sashes, which were superseded to a large extent by casement windows in the early twentieth century.
    
    When built, the two houses differed slightly in size, with 7 Higham Road, Hawthorn East wider as it incorporates the front door in the front facade. The door has Art Nouveau side- and highlights around it. In contrast, the front door of 5 Higham Road, Hawthorn East is on the south side elevation, situated where the verandah terminates. It is reached by a short flight of steps with solid curved balustrades topped with decorative urns, all of which appears to be original. Building permit plans for 7 Higham Road, Hawthorn East indicate that a similar flight of steps is located on the south side of the verandah.

     

    The house at 7 Higham Road, Hawthorn East is highly intact externally, apart from replacement of the verandah floor with a concrete slab (it was probably tiled originally), and the overpainting of the brick (which could be removed with suitably gentle means). The high brick front fence is also a modern change. The house at 5 Higham Road, Hawthorn East retains its unpainted brick, but was extended around 1985 (Building Permits 3200 & 4390). This includes a flat-roofed brick ensuite appended to the north side and extending as far as the front facade, an L-shaped wing at the south-west corner of the house which imitates many details of the original section (it is largely visible from the street, but set to the rear), and a brick garage at the south end of the frontage (it obscures views to the 1985 extension only).

    Heritage Study and Grading

    Heritage Study and Grading

    Boroondara - Municipal-Wide Heritage Gap Study Volume 6: Hawthorn East

    Author: Context
    Year: 2018
    Grading: Local

• Explore related places
  • Show:
    -- select -- Same era

  • 
    'Aqua Profonda' sign wall sign, Fitzroy Swimming Pool

    

    Yarra City H1687
  • 
    'DRIFFVILLE'

    

    Boroondara City
  • 
    1) WEATHERBOARD FARM HOUSE AND 2) THE OUTBUILDINGS

    

    Nillumbik Shire
• Public contributions