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Balloch's Bakery and Stables (former)
157 Auburn Road HAWTHORN EAST, BOROONDARA CITY

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Boroondara City

Balloch's Bakery and Stables (former), 157 Auburn Road Hawthorn

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Statement of Significance
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Statement of Significance

What is significant?

The former Balloch & Son’s Bakery at 157 Auburn Road and the stables at 3 Russell’s Place, Hawthorn are significant. The building comprises the original 1891 building still visible along Russell’s Place, with an interwar remodelled manufactory and facade constructed by the Swanson Brothers in 1934.

The 1915 red brick stable is located to the rear of the bakery building, accessed from Russell’s Place.

How is it significant?

The former Balloch & Sons Bakery and former bakery stables are historically and architecturally significant to the City of Boroondara.

Why is it significant?

The former bakery manufactory at 157 Auburn Road, Hawthorn is historically significant as the Balloch & Sons bakery operated on this site from 1891 to 1967. Balloch & Sons was the leading baker in Hawthorn, delivering bread door to door throughout Hawthorn and Malvern, and responsible for distributing Sustenance during the Great Depression. The expansion of the bread factory in the interwar period was part of the development of a local manufacturing capacity in the early twentieth century. The bakery, stables and former Murphy Brothers grain store on the corner of Burwood and Auburn roads together tell the story of industry in the municipality from raw materials through manufacture and delivery. (Criterion A)

The stables is historically significant for its association with the manufacturing bakers Balloch & Sons, Hawthorn’s leading bakers. The building clearly demonstrates the continuing reliance of Hawthorn businesses into the early twentieth century on horse-drawn transport, in particular the use of horse and cart to deliver bread direct to residents. (Criterion A)

The former stables at 3 Russell’s Place is a rare surviving example of a commercial stables building. (Criterion B)

The former stables is architecturally significant for exhibiting characteristic features of an early twentieth century stables, notably the hay loft door, wide stable entrance, two rows of small windows and roof with open gables to aerate the hay. (Criterion D)

The former bakery manufactory at 157 Auburn Road, Hawthorn is architecturally significant as an example of an industrial bakery. The building is distinguished by its Streamline Moderne facade demonstrating clean lines and simple parapet. A pair of panels above the upper windows on the right side of the facade display rendered wheat sheaf symbols denoting the building’s former usage as a bakery. (Criterion D)

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- Physical Description 1
  
  Balloch's Bakery and Stables (former) - Physical Description 1
  
  Description & Integrity
  The former bakery fronts Auburn Road while the former bakery stables are accessed via Russell’s Place. A concreted laneway runs between the two buildings, entering into a small common courtyard.
  
  Part of the original 1891 bakery building is visible adjacent to Russell’s Place. Aerial photos and investigation of the side and rear elevations of the building provide evidence of a complex developed over time as the business expanded in the early twentieth century. The remodelled facade of the bakery at 157 Auburn Road is Streamlined Moderne in character, with parallel horizontal line motifs, simple window openings and a stepped parapet. Ornamentation is concentrated on the upper part of the building, with a cornice and a pair of panels above the windows on the right side of the facade decorated with wheat sheaf bas-reliefs. On the left side of the building, a garage door opens onto the street. The corners of the building on the north side and on either side of the garage door are quoined. The street level shopfront appears altered with contemporary window frames and glazing beneath a quarter-round awning. The doorway has also been altered materially, but has a recessed entry. Original plans of the shopfront have not been located.
  
  Painted signage denoting the Balloch & Sons bread factory is partly visible in the rear gable of the building on the north-south laneway off Russell’s Place. The bakery’s three chimneys are visible in aerial views and at least one is visible from the rear laneway. The openings and walls along Russell’s Place and the laneway have been subject to several alterations, namely overpainting of the bricks, sills and lintels along Russell’s Place elevation. Signage is no longer visible on this wall. The garage opening on Russell’s Place also appears to have replaced earlier openings, while similar alterations are discernible on the ground elevation of the laneway.
  
  The former stables are a two-storey red brick building with two rows of small windows on each level. The windows are square, with painted concrete sills and segmentally arched brick heads, with wire glass inside wooden frames. The building is identified as stables by its hayloft door with pulley above, and its large central stable door opening. The original stable doors have been replaced with a roller door. The roof of the building is corrugated steel with a hipped form and an open Dutch gable end. Aerial views suggest original openings in the roof have been covered. The 1935 extension at the rear of the stables consists of a saw-toothed roof single-storey red brick form with corrugated steel roof, opening onto the rear courtyard.
  
  Online real estate photos from 2014 indicate that the interior of the former bakery and former stables have been renovated, with their conversion to a commercial showroom and gymnasium respectively.
  
  Heritage Study and Grading
  
  Heritage Study and Grading
  
  Boroondara - Municipal-Wide Heritage Gap Study Volume 6: Hawthorn East
  
  Author: Context
  Year: 2018
  Grading: Local
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