Victoria Park Post Office

Victoria Park Post Office is at 414 Albany Highway, corner Duncan Street, Victoria Park.^[1]

Victoria Park Post Office is freestanding and setback on an angle to the street corner formed by Albany Highway and Duncan Street. The original building incorporated a post and telegraph office and residence. The roadside setting contrasts visually to what is otherwise an undistinguished commercial strip of more recent construction.^[1]

The post office presents as a single-storey (overpainted red) brick building with contrasting rendered detailing, strongly modelled arched streetscape facades and tile-clad hipped roof forms, with gablet. The corner entrance porch is located in the south-west of the building, and has rendered arched openings with accentuated keystones, and rusticated piers providing access to the retail shop in a repositioned doorway. The building presentation to Duncan Street is broken into three bays, with the arcaded front to the post office bay, a skillion-roofed verandah to the middle bay (originally with a timber-posted verandah), and a further bay with a pair of rectilinear window openings. The latter two bays are part of the original residence. The Albany Highway frontage originally comprised a four-arched bay to the post office, incorporating the corner entrance porch, and a hipped gable and lantern to the roof.^[1]

The latter two elements, as well as gryphons, have been removed, and a 1950s addition extended this frontage to provide two further bays, built in a matching style. The mitred joint of the timber-slatted eave indicates the extent of the original roofline. While broadly identical in elevation, the coursed spandrel underneath each opening, led to the simplification of the sills rather than the stepped pattern shown in the original openings.^[1]

The chimneys are rusticated face brick; the rusticated motif (by this time something of a Commonwealth signature) is continued along the highway frontage as a dado up to the springing points of each arch. The arches themselves have individually rusticated voussoirs and elongated or accentuated keystones, in the contemporary Edwardian Baroque manner. The sides and rear of the post office are cast as standard Federation villa elevations, with double-hung sash windows and angled fireplaces.^[1]

Other external elements include a timber-framed, skillion-roofed and enclosed (half glazed/half corrugated iron panelled) post office box alley to the rear of the site with a separate entrance; a ramp with steel balustrade to the corner porch; and a non-original timber picket fence to part of the property boundary. The post-box alley was created in the 1920s when the rear verandah was bricked in and replaced by a wall of post-boxes, sheltered under an extended verandah. A metal skillion-roof and small office addition has also been made to the east side of the former telegraph office.^[1]

The interior has undergone serial alterations over a long period. These changes have impacted on the relationship between the main postal hall and the original residence and telegraph office. However, original internal fabric remains evident throughout, including cornices and architraves, although later fabric includes joinery, suspended ceilings, partitions and new internal wall openings. The main postal space has a typical contemporary Australia Post retail fitout.^[1]

In c. 1923 the residential quarters were reduced to a single bedroom and bathroom, and the remainder of the quarters were refurbished as a mailroom and offices, supplanting the original three bedrooms and living room. This included a postmaster's administrative office and telegraph room which replaced two of the bedrooms. The kitchen became a serviced staff room and the mailroom eventually occupied the parlour. The wall dividing the postal hall and mailroom was later removed, the main counter extended and a range of alterations were made to the doors and windows. Another set of internal alterations led to a simpler division of public area and mailroom, with a new postmaster's office at the rear and internal access to the post office boxes. The staff or "welfare" room was converted into a toilet block and the lunchroom relocated to the remaining former bedroom of the old quarters. The fireplace was removed from the public hall, but all the other fireplaces remain, though blocked up. One houses a small safe.^[1]

Note that the post office boxes are housed in a separate timber-framed structure located in the northwest site corner and is clad with metal sheeting.^[1]

Victoria Park Post Office was listed on the Australian Commonwealth Heritage List on 22 August 2012.^[1]

Victoria Park Post Office, completed in 1913 to a design by Public Works Department Architect Hillson Beasley, and originally comprising a single-storey post office and telegraph office with quarters, is of historical and social significance. Its construction came at a time when Victoria Park had evolved as a ribbon development flanking a main road, now Albany Highway, between Perth and the town of Albany. An earlier post and telegraph office of 1898, in leased premises, was later replaced by the current building on its prominent and centrally located corner site. The generous size of the building, its rich original detailing and presentation to two streetscapes (albeit diminished by later works), and its location in an important part of the Victoria Park commercial area, all enhance these aspects of significance, as does its role as a recognisable historic public building within the townscape (criteria a and g).^[1]

Architecturally and stylistically, the post office building is significant; as a whole it remains substantially intact externally, albeit works to the building over time have had some impact. While the extension of the main building front in c. 1950 sustained the majority of original detailing, the reconfiguration of the gabled roof profile, including removal of the decorative gargoyles, roof lantern and the gable to the Albany Highway, have detracted from some of the picturesque qualities and whimsical detail of the original design. The over-painting of the exterior has also further impacted on the architectural presentation of the building. Notwithstanding this, the post office retains its rusticated piers, thickly scaled Romanesque arched openings and arcaded frontage, and deep rendered courses. The original use of gryphons, albeit removed, is also of note as these elements were rare in government buildings (criterion d).^[1]

Victoria Park Post Office is of aesthetic significance. This in part derives from its location on a prominent corner site, at the junction of Albany Highway and Duncan Street, in the commercial centre of Victoria Park suburb. The high level of visibility afforded to its historic elevations and hipped roofscape (albeit altered) also gives the building some landmark qualities. Aesthetically, the post office additionally gains value from its strong streetscape presentation which, despite the overpainting, maintains the contrast between the brick walls and rendered detailing, enhanced by the strongly modelled arched streetscape facades with rusticated piers.^[1]

The significant elements of the Victoria Park Post Office include the original 1913 building component, with integrated residence. The c. 1920s timber-framed, skillion-roofed and enclosed post office box alley to the rear is a lesser element; while the metal skillion-roof and small office addition to the east side of the former telegraph office; ramp to the corner porch; and the timber picket fence are not significant.^[1]

• GS Warmington and AC Ward, Australia Post Survey of Historic Properties in Western Australia, 1993; Town of Victoria Park, Municipal Heritage Inventory Place Record Form, undated [MHI]; Heritage Council of Western Australia, Register of Heritage Places, Database Number 2222; Savills, APPD Property Valuation Report, June 2005.

• Original: Original elevations and sections dated 1913.
• Alterations: Revisions dated June 1920 and 1923, probably by Commonwealth government architects.
• Existing conditions: 2004 Australia Post Corporate Real Estate basic site and building layout.

• 1913, 1937, 1980, 1991–2, 1993, 2006 (survey)

• Victoria Park Post Office buildings, Series Number PP224/2, Barcode 1542919; Victoria Park Post Office release of premises, Series Number K1, Barcode 731886; Victoria Park Post Office, Series Number PP715/1, Barcodes 882471, 882510 & 882644; Victoria Park Post Office, Series Number PP272/1, Barcode 1361444; Victoria Park Post Office, Series Number K1209, Barcodes 1660370 & 1660374; Victoria Park Post Office, Series Number K1201, Barcodes 880348 & 881363; Victoria Park Post Office additions, Series Number PP280/1, Barcode 1553770; Victoria Park Post Office site, Series Number K273, Barcode 857216

This Wikipedia article was originally based on Victoria Park Post Office, entry number 106197 in the Australian Heritage Database published by the Commonwealth of Australia 2020 under CC-BY 4.0 licence, accessed on 4 January 2020.