Main Street 25-29 Willaston
| Place type: | Building |
|---|---|
| Also known as: | Willaston Hotel |
| Address: | 25-19 Main Street |
| Town or Locality: | Willaston |
DESCRIPTION:
This series of four former shops forms a continuous parapet along Main North Road. These shops are constructed of overpainted brick and render, with rendered dressings, to the façade, and stone rubble to the side and rear walls. A partial, damaged, overpainted brick chimney is evident to the early lean-to structure to the rear. The roof forms are a mixture of gabled, hipped, and skillion constructions, all clad with corrugated metal. The non-original straight verandah features a steel frame, clad with corrugated metal is supported on square timber posts. Doors to the façade feature arched heads and have been infilled along with a shopfront. Uncovered windows are fixed panel and multipaned sashes.
STATEMENT OF HERITAGE VALUE:
This group of former shops displays historical, economic or social themes that are of importance to the local area, as an expression of the pattern of development in Willaston as new subdivisions were created in response to the town’s economic growing prosperity and increasing population.
BRIEF HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:
The township of Willaston was founded in 1848 by William Paxton on land formerly granted to Henry Dundas Murray and another of the original syndicate of investors in the 1939 Gawler Special Survey. The first building in the town was the original Willaston Hotel constructed in c1849 immediately adjacent to the bridge crossing the North Para River. It was licensed between 1850 and 1920, and afterwards became a private residence. Willaston's second hotel, the first two-storey building in the town, was built for Charles Thomas Scown, cornfactor, in 1866, on Allotment 14 of section 1, Hundred of Mudla Wirra. It was known as the Victoria Hotel until 1958, when its name changed to the Willaston Hotel.
Thomas Scown was granted a publican’s license and the Victoria Hotel was approved as a new pubic house in September 1866, and Charles Thomas Scown took over the license the following year. He was a long-standing resident of Gawler and an old colonist, having arrived in South Australia in 1837. He also owned a chaff mill and grain store in the town. He was an active member of the Wesleyan Methodist Church and superintendent of the Gawler Methodist School, a prominent member of the Gawler Institute, and had been a Town Councillor for the Mudla Wirra Council from 1856, and its Chairman in 1861. Charles Scown held the title to the property until 1869, when he announced the sale of the Victoria Hotel along with other property as he was relinquishing business ‘in consequence of ill-health’, and intended leaving the colony for California. A lavish farewell dinner was held in his honour, attended by 50 or 60 gentlemen of note, including Sir G S Kingston and several MPs and local dignitories. Interestingly, he was arrested shortly afterwards on account of unpaid accounts owed to Fotheringham’s Bros. Brewerey. Brought before the Insolvency Court, he was briefly imprisoned for debt, before moving with his family to Melbourne. The hotel was transferred to George Robertson, of Willaston, licensed victualler, but he only remained in possession for one year before the mortgagee Randolf Isham Stow foreclosed on his loan, and the property was sold to William Knox Simms, Adelaide brewer in 1871. The hotel was leased to successive publicans, before being absorbed into the newly formed South Australian Brewing, Malting and Wine and Spirits Company Ltd in 1888, of which William Knox Simms was a founding partner. In 1900 this became the South Australian Brewing Company Ltd, which retained the title to the property throughout the 20th century.
From an early date a blacksmith’s shop and tinsmith premises occupied part of the land on the northern side of Allotment 14, and a row of four small shops were built at some stage prior to 1900 on the southern side near the corner of Paxton Street, with frontages to Main Street. There were also stone stables and yards at the rear, where auctions were sometimes conducted in the early years.
The shop premises were sub-let and occupied by a variety of small businesses over the years, including bakers, butchers, greengrocers, secondhand dealers, a sign writer and saddlery and harness shop. From the 1930s to the 1960s the end shop immediately to the south of the hotel was used as the Willaston Football Club training rooms, and the intervening laneway was later enclosed to connect it to the hotel as a darts and pool room. The former shops have been further adapted in recent years as an extension of the hotel facilities.
Please <click here> to view photos of 25-29 Main Street Willaston.
Acknowledgments
This report has been prepared by the following people:
• Nancy Cromar (Flightpath Architects)
• Deborah Morgan (Flightpath Architects)
• Kate Paterson (Flightpath Architects)
• Douglas Alexander (Flightpath Architects)
The study team would like to acknowledge the assistance of the following people:
• David Petruzzella (Strategic Planner; Town of Gawler)
• Jacinta Weiss (Cultural Heritage Centre Coordinator; Town of Gawler)
• Jane Strange (Senior Development and Strategic Policy Officer; Town of Gawler)
Gawler History Team Inc. thanks:
Flightpath Architects, Ryan Viney and the Town of Gawler for allowing us access to this important document of Gawler History.
www.flightpatharchitects.com.au
.
References
- LTO CT 134/208; CT 660/98; CT 1615/26
- Hignett & Company Gawler Heritage Study Stage 1 December 1981
- South Australian Register 11 September 1866 p 3
- The Adelaide Express 11 September 1866 p 5
- Express and Telegraph 4 March 1870 p3
- Kapunda Herald and Northern Intelligencer
- 12 March 1869 p2
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