Houses

1. Early And Mid Victorian Period (C1850-1975)

Reference Examples:

• Ballam Park House, Cranbourne Road (1856);
• Inverell Cottage, Canadian Bay Road (c1870-81);
• Yamala, 22 Yamala Dve (c1875);
• Possibly 366 Nepean Highway, Rubra cottage, Watts Parade; and 4 Cassiobury Avenue.
• 4 Cassiobury Avenue

1 Ballam Park House (1856) showing the gabled form of a simple Gothic revival, popular for architect designed farm houses of the mid 19th century: note verandah infilled, window details altered and wing added.

Frankston's surviving early and mid-Victorian period houses are not numerous. Examples remain from the early farmland and orchard era which preceded the area's suburban subdivision and the once numerous simple town cottages (366 Nepean Highway). Stylistically, the Gothic revival suited the small farm house (Cassiobury) and the Renaissance revivals suited the mansions (Yamala). So diverse and small in number are the examples that no typical trends can be stated except for those occurring throughout the metropolitan area in this period.

Siting
Since suburban subdivision the original siting has been altered on most of the city's examples, being originally located at the end of long drives from the few existing main roads. Today, some show their age by their orientation away from the street. Those cottages which might have been created on suburban lots (366 Nepean Highway) were close to, or almost on, the street alignment.

Walls

Timber Wall Cladding
Early houses in the area were predominantly clad with timber square or beaded-edge weatherboards on a sawn timber frame. Few remain.

2. House, 366 Nepean Highway: an altered example of a simple type of timber cottage which once proliferated in this section of Frankston: note the scalloped profile to the gable fascia and multi-coloured brickwork in the chimney. The verandah has been partly filled in and the side wall added to and altered

Brick Wall Cladding
(Note: some early brick walls may have been stuccoed later). Inverell House face brick walls from this period but few other examples exist. Some chimneys may, although most of these have also been rendered over. Generally walls were laid in red or brown bricks, in a Brunswick 'Hoffman' size of 9" x 4" x 2¾" (235 x 114 x 70mm) or English 'stock brick' 8¾" x 4" x 2" (222 x 114 x 64mm) or American 'common' size 7" x 3¾" x 2" (191 x 95 x 57mm), set in sand-lime based mortar; in a Flemish bond for front walls (one brick length thick) and English bond for side walls. The lime mortar used was near flush with the brick face.

5. Laying brickwork [ICS]

As locally manufactured bricks attained better quality, so did the Hoffman size prevail. Fancy white bricks were in demand by the later 1860s and might have been used as quoins (wall corners or opening edges) and voussoirs (opening arches).

Stuccoed Masonry Wall Cladding
Stucco over brick or stone rubble was probably used later in this period as ruled pseudo-stone (Yamala), perhaps lightly coloured as such with an oil wash, and with possibly some Portland cement content. Earlier waterproofing stucco finishes may not have been ruled, would have been of lime and sand and probably 'white-washed' with a tinted mixture of lime and linseed oil.

Stone Wall Cladding
Basalt in course random rubble and blocks, with dressed or stuccoed brick quoins and a rough 'quarry' face finish (façade), occurs typically in Melbourne in a time span of c1850-65. As brick quality improved, these were used to trim openings, as a cost saving and a colour contract to the stone. No stone houses are known to remain in the city from this period.

Roofing
Modest houses were roofed simply, typically over the one room's depth. Transverse gables and simple hipped roofs were common, both either sloped to take split hardwood or sawn softwood shingles or imported Welsh slates (20 degrees slope min.) or corrugated galvanized iron (15 degrees min.) Extra rooms when needed were accommodated under another hip or gabled roof joined to the first (Inverell House).

8. Corrugated iron roofing [ICS].

If a two room depth was chosen, this meant a steep roof ridge line, using simple hips or gables. Gables facing the street were less common and if used often possessed carved bargeboards in the Gothic revival manner. Parapeted roof lines, so common later under inner metropolitan building by­laws, were not so in this area and era.

Verandahs
Early modest houses were often not verandahed, but those that were, possessed relatively slender, stop-chamfered timber posts and concave profile verandah roofs. Tongue and grooved softwood timber flooring (on a stone base or plinth), carved or shaped timber valances or decoration and a concave corrugated iron roof profile were common. Supporting posts were sometimes panelled with infill detail. the roof was often not supported by battens or purlins, but spanned from a bead-edge wall trimmer to a stop‑chamfered bressurner by means of bolted or riveted side joints to the sheets (nom. 150mm centres) and in perhaps a heavier gauge iron (24g.)

Curved roof hips were cover-flashed with lead over formed oregon circular sections to provide the roof hip (modern equivalents to this is bent water pipe which creates the former at the ridge). Straight flashings were in cold-formed galvanised sheet iron sections. Balustrading was also of timber, generally a capped picket type with variations in the form of diagonal cross (saltire) balustrade panels.

Roof Drainage
Eaves were generally near non-existent with cast or pressed galvanised iron, ogee-profile gutters fixed by spike and tube if galvanised iron or shaped brackets, if cast-iron, to bead-edged fascias mounted on the wall face or close to it. Gutter moulds were in the form of continuous timber mouldings (ogee, scotia or compound curves) or dentils were used under gutters, more so in early houses. Round downpipes, ie. 50mm diam. were fixed to walls with wrought galvanised metal spikes and emptied into brick or stone pitched surface drains. Early (1840-50s) gutter sections were also half round and supported on carved timber brackets, some were of timber (refer diagram).

Ornament
Early decoration was sparingly applied and often achieved with carved or scroll-sawn wood on verandah or roof valances but local patents of cast-iron patterns commenced in 1870 and started an era (c1875-1905) where increasing use of decorative iron occurred. Imported patterns were used infrequently prior to the 1870s in Melbourne. However, the form they took was often simple cast-iron brackets at timber posts, simple friezes between rails or rarely 'open-work' panelled columns using slender sections.

Openings
Typically double hung sash windows, six-panes each, were placed one on either side of a four or six-panel door with slim architraves, if the house was timber clad. Stone house openings were trimmed with carved stone quoins, with fine-axed margins and sills, or quoins of 'fancy white' brickwork. French doors, opening onto a verandah, are exemplified in the larger house type.

Chimneys
Chimneys were typically of brick (but also of stone in a stone building) with a three-layer corbelled cornice, and symmetrically placed in the house elevation of Colonial Georgian or early Italianate style houses. Asymmetry was common in the Gothic revival houses. Terra-cotta pots, tall and crowned, were often used, but are seldom seen insitu, (these are sold as reproductions today by Gargoyles & Dragons, Glen Iris). Stuccoed chimneys, using a slimmer more refined version of the late Victoria period, compound cornice mouldings, also are seen on older houses; the stucco may have been added in some cases. Stone chimneys might be carved into a cornice or more likely given a rough string mould.

Fences
(Refer National Trust of Australia Fences and Gates technical bulletin). Generally timber picket, possibly also functioning as a balustrade if the house abutted the street and always on the building line. Simple profiles were used including arrow, round and spade-head pickets; individual pickets being generally 1200mm height, 75 x 22 mm in section, spaced 65-70mm. Posts were generally similarly shaped to the pickets and rails sometimes angle-cut to shed water. Capping rails with weathered profiles were used where a combined balustrade-fence function existed on small houses close to the street (no example in Frankston).

13. Picket heads: (F) and (I) most common in early 19th C fences: (G) & (J) more common in Edwardian times [Perry Bird catalogue].

Grand houses possessed timber picket fences with large carriage gates, which were, in detail, similar to those of the modest cottage but taller and grander. Fences containing the house and garden of a large estate, which faced a secondary street, may have been of timber capped corrugated iron sheet (1600-1800mm high) or more commonly the simple hardwood arrow­head picket was used. Wrought-iron pickets with cast fleur-de-lis heads were also used in Melbourne but infrequently, if at all during this period, in Frankston.

Colours
(Refer National Trust of Australia Exterior Paint Colours technical bulletin).
Nineteenth century external colours, like the architecture, became more diverse as the century progressed. However the underlying principle of simulated materials (stone for walls and slate for roofs) remained the same. Painted wall colours translate into 'Cream' (sandstone), 'Light Stone' (limestone) with limited use of highlight colours (usually deeper tones of the same hue) to simulate trim stones such as granite and the openings' joinery colours follow the deep colours 'Rich Brown', 'Indian Red', 'Purple Brown', 'Dark Green' and limited use of 'Prussian Blue'. Roofs were natural iron, slate colour or maroon and cream, used as a strip on verandahs.

As these colours were mixed on site with linseed oil, pigments and a white base, each colour created was unique but within the limited range cited. However paint scrape microscope analysis will often uncover unusual colour schemes which are particular to the architectural treatment of the building. Graining of joinery was also used but generally limited to under verandahs to prevent weathering of the varnish.