7.2 The 1977 and 1993 heritage conservation studies

Soon after the formation of the Heritage Commission by the Whitlam government the firm of Lawrie Wilson and Associates was commissioned to ‘undertake a study of the buildings and objects of potential architectural and historical significance’ in the City of Bendigo. The scope was subsequently extended to an area vaguely referred to as ‘the whole of the urban area’. The study, the authors explained, was an exercise in planning, with ‘emphasis on the conservation of areas of historical significance rather than individual buildings’. Detailed analysis of architectural and historic importance was ‘quite beyond the capacity of the study’. The study did have some recommendations for further investigation with a ‘view to protect areas containing potential buildings of historic or architectural significance as the first stage in the conservation process’. The authors advised that ‘no original historical research was undertaken’.^[1]

The study identified nine areas of heritage and historic significance:

1. Sailors Gully Precinct
2. Harvey Town Precinct
3. Eaglehawk Central Precinct
4. Long Gully Precinct
5. Victoria Hill Precinct
6. Central Area Precinct
7. Barkly Terrace Precinct
8. Golden Gully Precinct
9. Diamond Hill

Despite a lack of research, the study did recognise the importance of working-class Bendigo. Harvey Town, located on the north of the goldfield, was particularly significant as the location of a series of stone cottages and outbuildings. Constructed by a family from Cornwall, the eponymous Harveys, these stone cottages had evocative resonances of the domestic stone architecture so prevalent in the old mining areas of the UK. Stone, however, was not the dominant form of building material on the Victorian goldfields. More typical, as we have seen, was timber. Focusing on the Victoria Hill and Long Gully districts, the study did identify the most important area for the emergence of quartz mining in the 1870s. The authors were fortunate to survey this area when it still appeared to have much charm:

Within the Long Gully precinct, a quiet, almost rural atmosphere is created by the undulating topography, street trees, few sealed footpaths, in some instances large blocks of land with small vegetable plots and fowl runs and lack of through traffic. To the outsider Long Gully seems a forgotten backwater with the charm of small miner’s cottages catching one’s eye.

The authors concluded that the Long Gully Precinct ‘is not perceived in terms of significant streetscapes but rather in the totality of its character in the generally pervading historic environment’. They demurred on making specific conservation recommendations; many of the houses were in poor repair, financial assistance was not available for maintenance and totally out-of-character renovations and infill buildings had been added. They did not consider it practicable to prohibit the demolition of the remaining cottages. They suggested that residents be made aware of the ‘historic character, charm and importance of their cottages’ and that the local council and local conservation bodies ‘assist and advise the residents with their own conservation efforts’. Failing to justify how it chose conservation areas, the 1977 study ignored important areas built in the 19th century.^[2]

The second heritage study, undertaken by Graeme Butler and Associates and released in 1993, was more ambitious in its scope:

The purpose of this study is to identify, evaluate and document the built and environmental heritage of the City of Bendigo and the Borough of Eaglehawk (the Study Area) and to place it within the context of the history of Victoria; to access the importance of the Study Area’s heritage as a State and community resource; and to develop a comprehensive program for the conservation of the Study Area’s heritage and its integration into the general planning framework.

The project’s budget recognised its bolder conceptual base. The budget allocated 40 per cent to historical investigation, 8 per cent to landscape and a further 40 per cent to built sites and urban areas. The architects in charge of the study, Andrew Ward and Graeme Butler, were two pioneers in heritage investigation and practice. The historian employed on the project was Dr Chris McConville, an urban historian who had made some trenchant criticism of the tendency of architects to look only at architectural values and ignore historic significance.^[3] The project also employed an expert in landscape and garden conservation and drew on engineering expertise to assess mining sites. Although it broke new ground, the 1993 study did little to protect working-class housing.^[4]

Unlike the 1977 study, the 1993 heritage study was underpinned by a short environmental history. Dr McConville examined three key phases in the European history of Bendigo:

1. To 1868 – The Digging Fields
2. Mining Metropolis 1868–1888
3. Forest City

In each section McConville provided short discussions about housing. Under the time constraints of a commissioned history, there was little opportunity to undertake detailed archival research, and the comprehensiveness of each period was determined largely by information in available printed sources. Of the five decennial censuses taken by the colonial government from 1861 to 1901, the 1861 census stands out as the only census that provided detailed coverage for small areas. Capturing the field in the final throes of alluvial mining, the census revealed a community of primitive housing. Eight years after the discovery of gold, McConville wrote that in most of the mining gullies the miners and their families were sheltered by small dwellings, many of them only one or two rooms. Tents were still common even in the centre of the city. Although the 1861 census permitted McConville to plot national origins in local areas, the census did not permit more detailed investigation of regional origins. A change to more substantial brick or stone buildings could be detected in 1861. In the 1870s and 1880s McConville observed that four-room weatherboard cottages had been built in the mining gullies, and on the more elevated locations the middle class built more substantial houses. The 1881 census provided McConville with a description of houses – rooms and materials – at the level of municipality and in Bendigo by wards. At the end of the century, McConville argued that although houses were small, most were generally accepted as basic but comfortable, and they were held ‘as better housing than that in the poorest areas of Melbourne’.^[5]

In the long term one of the more important features of the 1993 study was the exhaustive survey of the heritage housing stock of Bendigo and Eaglehawk.^[6] Ward and Butler examined over 4,000 buildings and gave these sites the following ranks:

1. National or state significance
2. Regional significance
3. Local significance
4. Representative of their era and contributory to a streetscape/precinct

From their survey they designated 1,540 sites of individual significance within 12 precincts and 29 sub-precincts. Their report provided heritage citations for the 294 sites designated as either A or B. The project funding, the authors claimed, did not permit any more detailed work, but a list of 1,000 sites designated C and D was compiled. Long Gully, identified as significant in the 1977 study, was designated a heritage precinct in the 1993 study. Unfortunately, the area set aside was largely on the main roads and the residential area identified in 1977 as having an almost rural atmosphere was excluded. This was an area largely settled by miners on Crown land. The tragedy of the 1993 study was the failure to link the field survey with the importance of small, domestic houses identified in the environmental history.