Paxton Street 49 Willaston
| Place type: | Building |
|---|---|
| Address: | 49 Paxton Street |
| Town or Locality: | Willaston |
DESCRIPTION:
This single-storey, double-fronted worker’s cottage is elevated from street level. The transverse gable cottage is constructed of sandstone with red brick quoins and random rubble sandstone parapet side walls. The gable roof is clad with corrugated metal. The central door is timber panelled and windows to either side are timber-framed, double-hung, while side walls feature casement windows, all with multipaned sashes. A red brick chimney with corbelled cap crowns the parapeted gable to the east. The non-original straight verandah is clad with corrugated metal and supported on square timber posts over a timber deck, enclosed by a timber balustrade.
STATEMENT OF HERITAGE VALUE:
Likely constructed during the late 1860s or early 1870s, the small cottage at 49 Paxton Street, Willaston, is associated with the ongoing growth of worker’s accommodation and residential development in Willaston during the mid-nineteenth century as the township’s commercial and industrial activity heightened. Constructed of local stone and brick in a transverse gabled form, the cottage typifies the distinctive local response to such accommodation.
BRIEF HISTORICAL BACKGROUND:
The original plan of Gawler prepared by Light, Finniss and Co in 1839 was extended as additional townships were added over the next two decades. Willaston was the first of these new suburban townships and was founded in 1848 by wealthy Adelaide chemist William Paxton on land granted to Henry Dundas Murray and John Reid of the original syndicate of investors in the 1939 Gawler Special Survey. The subdivision comprised 17 acres of land on the northern side of the North Para River divided into 115 building allotments. The first building in the town was the original Willaston Hotel constructed in c.1849 immediately adjacent to the bridge crossing the North Para River on Main Road. Some of the earliest buildings in Willaston are located in Main Street, as the main thoroughfare to the northern mining and agricultural areas at the time.
On 25 June 1849 the South Australian Mining Gazette carried an advertisement for the sale of ‘The Township of Willaston – in acres, half acres or more to suit purchasers… offered for at 4, 8, and 12 months date.
Allotment 12 is shown on the 1850 township plan of Willaston located at the south western corner of Main and Paxton Streets at the centre of the new subdivision, and convenient to the newly built bridge connecting Willaston to Gawler. The allotment was subsequently subdivided into smaller building blocks, including this portion containing only fifteen perches (less than ¼ acre), together with right of way via a private road on its western boundary. On 4 May 1900 William George Simons of Willaston, mason, held the certificate of title for a portion of Allotment 12, section 1 . It is likely that the Simons family had been in occupation of this land for many years previous to this, as a public notice was placed by an R R Simons in 1858 warning that animals straying onto allotment 12 would be destroyed. William George Simons was born in Willaston in 1848, and his father’s name was Richard Rougin Simons.
On William Simons’ death in 1924, the property was transferred to his widow, Mary Ann Simons, who kept it until her death in 1939, when it passed to her son Herbert William Simons, of North Plympton, who was also a stonemason. In 1943 it was transferred to Nicholas Joseph O’Brien, of Youngala, a retired farmer. In 1949 the title was transferred to Eric Lloyd Geue, cellar hand of Willaston and Elsie Florence Geue his wife.
It is not known when the stone cottage now occupying the site was built, but it is likely to have been between 1860 and 1870. The style and scale of the cottage is typical of workers’ cottages built in the mid nineteenth century, when Willaston boasted a number of thriving industrial enterprises, including the Willaston Lime and Brick Co, James Woods’ machine shops, a large butchers and smallgoods operation of Edwin Gartrell / Hodgson and Clement, the general store and confectionery of E Coombe & Son, a saw mill, several wheat stores and numerous blacksmiths and small manufacturing establishments. In the 1890s a new industry in Willaston was created supplying limestone flux for the Port Adelaide Smelting Company. Availability of affordable housing within financial reach of working people to rent or buy, and proximity to work and transport provided a stimulus to population growth in Willaston, which had become the largest of Gawler’s suburbs by the end of the nineteenth century.
Please <click here> to view photos of 49 Paxton 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
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References
- LTO CT 660/3
- Hignett & Company Gawler Heritage Study Stage 1 December 1981
- Adelaide Observer 4 Sept 1858 p8
- Adelaide Times 26 February 1849 p1
- Bunyip 30 May 1879 p4; 20 June 1879 p3;
- South Australian Gazette and Mining Journal 25 January 1849 p1
- ancestry.com.au
- [[Plan of Willaston [1850]]]
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