The Tofts (Plowman Residence)

20 Davey Street, Frankston

History
Situated on land Plowman had purchased in the 1890s on the corner of Davey and Young Street, Dr. Sidney Plowman's house. The Tofts, was designed by Melbourne architects Blackett and Rankin in 1900.1 Blackett and Rankin called for tenders for a two-storey residence and outbuildings in May, 1900.2 J.C. Cameron, of High Street, Terang, accepted the tender of £2,219 for construction of the residence.3 The Tofts was used by Plowman as a residence, surgery and private hospital.4 He continued to practice there until the outbreak of World War I, when his son, Dr. Sidney Plowman Junior, took over the practice.5 Dr. Plowman, Jnr., practiced there until, joining the Army in World War II, he left the practice in other hands until the end of the War.6 Plowman,. Sold The Tofts in the early, 1950s to the Returned Serviceman's League and retired to the country in north east Victoria.7

Born 1853 at Boston, Lincolnshire, England, Sidney Plowman was educated at a local grammar school and apprenticed to a chemist and druggist in Boston, Sawyer, T. and Nelson, I., at the age of 16.8 Within in five years he had passed the minor examination of the pharmacy Society Of Great Britain.9 Awarded a scholarship he transferred to London where he passed the major exam in 1873 and gained the highest student award, the Pereira Medal.10 Plowman was appointed apothecary lecturer in pharmacy and tutor in material medica at St. Thomas's Hospital, London, in 1876.

The Pharmaceutical Society, in 1889, invited Plowman to take up the position of Director of Pharmacy School of Melbourne.11 He took up the appointment in 1890. He taught practical pharmacy and sought to improve the course and study the conditions of students. Plowman became ill with Pneumonia and because of continues bad health resigned in 1895.12

In 1893 Plowman open his first surgery in Frankston, at Skirbeck in High Street.13 He continues his practice at The Tofts when it was built in 1900. In 1903, when the University of Melbourne Medical School and College of Pharmacy continues their materia medica courses, Plowman again lectured in the subject.14 At the outbreak of World War I, Plowman handed over his practice to his son and lectured on a full time basis at Melbourne University until he retired in 1919.15

Dr. Plowman married a Scottish nurse, Mary Ewanson, in 1894.16 He was elected to the Frankston & Hastings Shire Council as representative for the North riding from 1912-17. He was the founder of the Frankston Branch of the National Federation, Honorary Medical Officer for the Ragged Boys' Home, Honorary Treasurer and Secretary of the Western Port progress Association and Treasurer of the Frankston Agricultural Society.17 Plowman died on 28th April 1932, at the Tofts.18

The architect, William Arthur Mordey Blackett, was born in 1873 at Fitzroy Victoria, and educates at Scotch College, Melbourne. He had an extensive and continuous practice from 1899 to the early 1940s. He was in partnership with T.H.P. Rankin to 1900 to 1903. His cousin, William Blackett Forster, joined him in partnership in 1914-32 and they received the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects medal in 1929.19 Blackett was noted for his house remodeling, publishing a number of articles on house design, and as a designer of interior decorations and fittings. He had a particular interest in the design of the two-storey house. Blackett had a distinguished association with both the Royal Victorian Institutes of Architects and later the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, of which he was a founder and first president in 1930. He died 2 June, 1962.20

Description
Most of this formerly large Queen Anne style brick and rough cast stuccoed house has been replaced with a modern office block, removing the extensive return verandah overlooking the bay and the high pyramid-form, slated roof above it.21 The surviving room bays have hip and Dutch Hip roofs, an expressed ornamented chimney shaft on the west face and the timber, two level post supported verandah on the east. Stepped brick buttresses angle out from the northern most corners of the house and red-rubbed bricks are used in the adjacent archways as highlights against the brown body brickwork. There is notched shingle-like boarding forming the lower verandah frieze, but no frieze is used at the upper level, with columns finishing in simple capitals.

The mature trees to the north of the house are notable.

External Integrity
Over half of the house has been replaced with a visually unrelated and massive office block. Of the remaining, many details have been renewed and how much of the original joinery survives is uncertain.

Context
Once isolated on the Davey Street Hill, the house adjoins the unrelated new office development (to the south and east) and the compatible 18 Davey Street (c1930) on the west which, in turn, relates to further development to the west. All are united by the notable Norfolk Island pine Avenue in Davey Street. The mature landscape fronting the house is also notable.

Landscape
Araucaria heterophylla, Ficus macrophylla, Quercus sp. (robur?) are the main elements in a former period garden, recently compromised by unsympathetic landscaping: the grey pavers are likely to cause damage to the tree roots as being unrelated to the period; the new native bed planting is also unrelated.

Significance – Study Grading C
Architecturally, this is only a remnant of a formerly notable house design by the prominent Melbourne Firm of Blackett and Rankin, which consequently no longer provides a complete design concept and, given recent renewal of the fabric, nor are the surviving details guaranteed to be original. The surviving adjacent public and private landscape is notable: of state interest and local importance

Historically, the remaining part of a house is a reminder of Plowman, who was important with in the State and Local context, but without its original extent and interior has only a limited role in illustrating his life-style: It is also one of the few Edwardian buildings in Central Frankston; of local importance.