Stanthorpe Post Office
Stanthorpe Post Office | |
---|---|
Location | 14 Maryland Street, Stanthorpe, Southern Downs Region, Queensland, Australia |
Coordinates | 28°39′20″S 151°56′01″E / 28.6556°S 151.9337°E |
Built | 1901 |
Architect | John Smith Murdoch |
Owner | Australia Post |
Official name | Stanthorpe Post Office |
Type | Listed place (Historic) |
Designated | 22 June 2004 |
Reference no. | 105524 |
Builders | D. Stewart and Co |
Stanthorpe Post Office is a heritage-listed post office at 14 Maryland Street,
History
The Stanthorpe Post Office was completed in 1901, making it the first post-Federation post office to be built in Queensland, and possibly Australia. The new post and telegraph office replaced an earlier postal building which had been constructed in 1885. The plans for the new building were completed by the Queensland Government Architect's office, under the direction of Alfred Barton Brady, in October 1900. The building underwent alterations in 1963 when a northern wing was added.[2] The site, at the northwest corner of Maryland and Railway streets, was previously occupied by the earlier timber post and telegraph office of 1884, which was moved to the rear of the site when the present building was constructed.[1]
The postmaster's residential quarters are assumed to have been separate.[1]
The design of the building has been attributed to John Smith Murdoch, with the Stanthorpe Post Office being his last design in southern Queensland before he was sent to the northern public works district.[3] Murdoch would soon become the first design architect for the Australian Government.[1] It was built by D. Stewart and Co in 1901. The clock came from England and was installed in 1903.[4]
The post office underwent alterations in 1963 creating enlarged service delivery areas, amenities and a post office box lobby and the relocation of the post office post shops. The work involved the over-painting of stucco, removal of original chimneys to north and south sides of the building, illuminated signage, over-painting of upper portion of central fanlight window to façade; automatic sliding aluminium entrance door, concrete steps and retiled floor to entry porch, ramp to north porch, postal box enclosure to façade annexed from the original postal hall.[1]
Description
Stanthorpe Post Office is at 14 Maryland Street, corner Railway Street, Stanthorpe.[1]
It was built in 1901 in an informal Arts and Crafts style mixed with Edwardian Baroque Revival elements.[5][1]
The original building was one storey in height with a four-storey tower, consisting of:[1]
- Structural frame: cavity brick. The base is rock faced coursed locally sourced granite and tuckpointed red brick with concrete piers.
- External walls: Brick with extensive cladding in textured stucco.
- Internal walls: Altered around 1963 with windows to north wall infilled.
- Floor: Timber framed
- Ceiling: beaded timber lining boards to porch soffits, v-jointed tongue and groove boarded trussed ceiling.
- Roof: half hipped form, of uncorrugated metal sheet with crimped joint coverings, beaded timber lining boards, pyramidal vented cupola.
- Flagpole with lightning conductor
- Rendered sills
The site has an extensive and largely unpaved yard area accommodating a car park, warehouse-depot for mail deliveries and a telecommunications tower.[1]
The Maryland Street front is a basically symmetrical composition, but is confounded by the placement of a tall clock tower on the corner. The tower is formally linked to the postal hall elevation by a
These materials are combined again in the parapet behind the pediment and the tower base, and in
The clock tower is a plain stuccoed shaft, recalled in
To the north there is a single level 1963 brown brick service wing addition, subsequently further extended during the late 1980s. It comprises mail delivery work areas, sorting spaces and additional
Internally the original post shop to the east façade has been converted to form the post office box lobby, running north south behind the façade – with timber and glazed doors to the original entrances to either end, with arched glazed toplights. The original ceiling is concealed by a
Disabled access to the post shop is via the ramp to the northern porch and through the post office box lobby and into the entry porch at the street corner below the tower. This entry porch is of tuckpointed brick and there are non-original doors to the west – access to the retail area, fitted with an
Within the building, the post shop now comprises the southern portion of the original post office space, and is divided from the working areas by a three-quarter height plasterboard partition. Originally the service counter was located beneath a large brick archway to the west facing into what is now the post office box lobby. The upper portion of this archway has been squared off, and partially infilled with
Within this space there is also an interview room enclosed by three-quarter height aluminium framed glazed partitions to the northwest corner. To the west, the original paired doors have been removed but the multipaned fanlight above has been retained, but over-painted. This now opens to a lunch room, male toilet facilities and stores. The storage areas to the southwest corner of the building – previously thought to have been a lavatory, constructed of brick – has a suspended ceiling form, as described previously. The lunch room is externally clad in weatherboards, and the interior walls are lined with fibrocement sheeting. The now enclosed west wall is of over-painted brick. The 1963 and later extension exhibits typical finishes and plan form of the era – the floors are of vinyl tile over concrete, walls of plasterboard and the ceilings are lined in plaster sheeting.[1]
The building has a World War I memorial plaque and a modern plaque with brief information about the building.
Condition
As at 2008, the external intactness and integrity of the building was good. Internally, the spaces have been refurbished, but the interiors retain original fabric in terms of floors, walls, ceilings and joinery, etc., albeit overpainted.[1]
Heritage listing
The significant components of Stanthorpe Post Office include the main postal building of 1901. The northern wing, added in 1963 and extended in the late 1980s, weatherboard infill to the west elevation and the loading dock are not significant for the purpose of the heritage listing.[1]
Stanthorpe Post Office was listed on the
Criterion A: Processes
The Stanthorpe Post Office is significant as the first post office in Queensland, and possibly Australia, to be built after the federation of the Australian colonies in January 1901. Designed in 1900 and completed in 1901 by Thomas Pye of the Queensland Public Works Office, it represents one of the many early contributions of the Queensland government to the fledgling Commonwealth. It follows an Australia-wide practice, in the sphere of communications, of state governments constructing postal and telegraph offices on behalf of the Commonwealth Postmaster General's Office, which was formally established in 1902. The Commonwealth did not have the resources, except in NSW and Victoria, to construct its own postal offices until the early 1920s. In terms of the local community, the Stanthorpe Post Office is also significant as a prominent public building and, as with most country areas, one of the first and most prominent manifestations of Commonwealth government presence in the town.[1]
Criterion D: Characteristic values
Stanthorpe Post Office is an example of:[1]
- a post office and telegraph office with quarters (second generation typology 1870–1929) with a clock tower is also present
- an informal Arts and Crafts treatment mixed with Edwardian Baroque Revival elements.[5]
- the work of the Queensland Government Architect's Office attributed to JS Murdoch.
Typologically, Stanthorpe has a high measure of integrity to its original design, particularly external integrity.[1]
Stylistically and architecturally, Stanthorpe forms an important group, coming just after Ipswich Post Office and before Mount Morgan Post Office in its application of Baroque Revival form and detailing to a post office. It is among the earliest Australian public buildings to be completed in a turn of the century Baroque manner, and, with Ipswich, counts as a prototype for the dominant mode in Australian public architecture until c.1918.[1]
Criterion E: Aesthetic characteristics
The building, in the Informal Arts and Crafts style with an elaborate Royal coat of arms and a prominent four-storey clock tower, has a strong aesthetic impact on the Stanthorpe streetscape.[1]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y "Stanthorpe Post Office (Place ID 105524)". Australian Heritage Database. Australian Government. Retrieved 1 October 2018.
- ^ Register of the National Estate
- ^ Watson and McKay (1994, p. 129)
- ^ Plaque on the Stanthorpe Post Office
- ^ a b English Renaissance or English Baroque revival of c.1885-1914
Bibliography
- Pearson, M; Lennon, J; Marshall, D; O'Keeffe, B (1999). National Federation Heritage Project: identification and assessment consultancy Volume 1 - Project report. Melbourne: Heritage Victoria. OCLC 222648799.
- Livingston, K T, 1994. 'Anticipating Federation: the federalising of telecommunications in Australia'. Australian Historical Studies 26: 97-117
- Queensland Heritage Register Citation: 600831, Stanthorpe post Office.
- Walker, M., 1983. Historic Post Offices in Queensland - A National Estate Study. University of Queensland, Department of Architecture.
- GS Warmington and AC Ward, Australia Post Survey of Historic Properties in Queensland, 1991;
- Australian National Estate, The Heritage of Australia, Melbourne: Macmillan, 1981
- Register of the National Estate, ID 9233
- Malcolm M Rea, Stanthorpe: an Australian Post Office History, 1972
- Chesterton Corporate Property Advisors, CISD Property Valuation Report, June 2005
- EJM Weller, 'Treasury Precinct, Brisbane', in National Trusts of Australia, Historic Public Buildings of Australia, Cassell, Sydney, 1972
- Alistair Service, Edwardian Architecture: a Handbook to Building Design in Britain, Thames and Hudson, London, 1977
- Conrad Hamann, John Smith Murdoch: Chronology of architectural connections and involvements, Lovell Chen, Melbourne, 2006
- Don Watson and Judith McKay, Queensland Architects of the Nineteenth Century, Museum of Queensland, Brisbane, 1994
- Trevor Howells et al., Towards the Dawn: Federation architecture in Australia, Hale and Iremonger, Sydney, 1989.
Attribution
, accessed on 1 October 2018.