Mossbank Park

Cranbourne Frankston Road, Langwarrin

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History
The Adderlys, a well-known district family, was associated with the present large Tudoresque clinker brick house which replaced an earlier home on the site destroyed by fire in 1944. The earlier house was occupied at first by Alfred Ernest Adderly, who came from England in 1913 and settled at Langwarrin in 1914. The Adderlys also owned a small store located near the corner of the Cranbourne-Frankston Road and John Street.

The house and store were surrounded by the early rural landscape that once distinguished the area. According to an Adderly descendant: 'Behind the house was virgin bush with echidnas, many kangaroos, wallabies and koalas. There were greenhood orchids, spider and tiger orchids and at times the purple orchids would be a blaze of colour through the bush.'1

In 1926 Douglas Adderly, Alfred's son, married Ida Allen, who taught at the Langwarrin State School, at first in the 1920s, later in the mid-1940s, 1950s and the early 1960s.

Douglas and Ida's children were called Margaret, Allen and Ian. Allen became a pharmacist and Ian a town planner and surveyor.2 From about 1930 Douglas and Ida were rated as the owner/occupiers of the house on about 13 acres in Crown Allotment 49A, Parish of Langwarrin. Douglas was described as a carrier.3 Douglas, who was also said to be a builder, built the group of shops opposite his home.4 In 1944, when a huge fire swept through Langwarrin, the Adderlys house was one of 11 burnt to the ground. For a year they lived in a caravan and tents, before the house that stands today was built. For many years it was just a shell without internal walls.5 Ida returned to teaching in 1944, remaining there until the early 1960s.6

The Adderlys donated the land where the Long Street kindergarten stands. Their contributions to the district's early development is commemorated in the choice of Adderly family names, Margaret, Allen and Ian, for local street names. Moate was Douglas Adderly's mother's maiden name and Glazebury was named after a house the family occupied in England.7

Description
At the south-east corner of John Street, this large Tudoresque, clinker brick house with its pitched and tiled roofs, and half-timbered gables is a distinctive part of the area because of its contrasting form and the maturity of its garden. It is surrounded by a large number of mature exotics and there is some early garden structure.

Garden
This is a garden with some mature trees, entered at a gate and fence (both recent) on the Cranbourne Frankston Rd. The John Street timber (castellated) paling fence is thought to dale from 1940s. A curving semi-circular driveway winds past the house to the rear garden.
The garden at the front of the house has elements dating from 1940s and later which include a mixture of native and exotic planting and some new brickwork and bluestone hard landscape construction. Plantings in the front and side garden are from c1940s period include 'Livistona' sp. , 'Cupressus macrocarpa' [golden cultivar], 'Phoenix canariensis', 'Populus nigra' "Italica", 'Cupressus macrocarpa' - large tree near front gate, 'Cordlyine australis', 'Magnolia grandiflora', 'Cedrus' sp., and 'Cinnamomum camphora'.

Various gums. pittosporum and wattle probably date from the 1970s and later. Rear garden contains mature 'Cupressus glabra'. 'Agonis flexuosa' and native gums.

Condition
The house appears substantially externally intact with some probable changes to the garden and fence.

Context
The house and garden combination is prominent in an area fast being overtaken with recent housing and shopping development. However, to the west are two other residual former farm properties, with mature trees, which relate to this house's representation of a past era.

Significance
The house is architecturally significant within the city as a large almost city-like house of a distinctive size and style (Tudor revival or Old English), formerly set in a rural environment but now within a mature and locally notable garden, with mature trees.

Mossbank Park, built after the Second World War to replace an earlier First World War house, has historical significance as an example of the lifestyle of successful families who came to live in this prosperous farming and orcharding district during these years.

The garden layout is altered but mature trees date from approximate period of the house construction date: of local (contributory to house) significance.

Boundaries
Extent of current allotment, including the front garden, cited trees, fence and house exterior.