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| 64 John Street, Camden. Built c.1920. (J Riley) |
Camden's Edwardian Cottages
Camden has quite a
number of Edwardian cottages in the town area, on surrounding farms and in local district villages. They are typical of the early twentieth
century landscape in the local district. The housing style was evidence of the
new found confidence of the birth of a new nation that borrowed overseas trends
and adopted them to suit local conditions. These style of houses were a
statement of the individualism and the national character.
The name Edwardian
is loosely attached to cottages and buildings erected during the reign of
Edward VII from 1901 to 1910. This period covers the time after the Federation
of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901 when the six self-governing colonies
combined under a new constitution. They kept their own legislatures and
combined to form a new nation.
Examples of
Edwardian style cottages, including in and around Camden, were an Australian
version of English Edwardian houses. Houses were plainer in detail, some with
lead lighting in the front windows. Australian architecture was a response to
the landscape and climate and the building style tells us about the time and
the people who built them, how they lived and other aspects of Camden’s
cultural heritage.
Edwardian housing style detail
The Edwardian style
of housing also includes a broad range of styles including Queen Anne,
Federation, Arts and Crafts and Early Bungalow. These styles often tend to be
asymmetrical with a projecting from gable, can be highly decorated with
detailed work to gables, windows and verandahs. Edwardian style cottages often
fit between 1900 and 1920, although the style extends beyond this period
influencing the Interwar style housing.
A number of Camden
Edwardian style timber cottages have a projecting room at the front of the
cottage with a decorated gable, adjacent to a front verandah, with a hipped
roof line. This housing style is often characterised by a chimney that was a
flue for a kitchen fuel stove and chip copper in an adjacent laundry. In some
houses plaster cornices were common, sometimes there were ceiling roses,
skirting and architraves. A number of houses have been restored while unfortunately many others
have been demolished.
Some Camden Edwardian
homes had walls of red brickwork, sometimes with painted render in part. While
there are many examples in the local area of timber houses with square-edged or
bull-nosed weatherboards. Sunshades over
windows supported by timber brackets are also common across the local area.
Doors in Edwardian
style houses typically have three or four panels, with entry doors sometimes
having an ornamentation. Common windows were double hung while later cottages
may have had casement windows especially in the 1920s. Some cottages have
return L-shaped verandahs, sometimes roofed with corrugated bull-nosed iron. Verandah
post brackets had a variety of designs, with lattice work not uncommon feature.
Verandahs featured timber fretwork rather than Victorian style cast ion lacework
for ornamentation. Front fences may have had pickets, or just a wire fence in
country areas.
Typical Edwardian
colour schemes range from apricot walls, gables and barge boards, with white
lattice panelling, red roofing and green coloured windows, steps, stumps, ant
caps.
Gardens were often
more complex than Victorian examples. Amongst Edwardian gardens growing lawns
became popular. Sometimes had a small tree in the front yard which could frame
the house and might separate it from adjacent houses. Common trees included
magnolia, elm, tulip tree or camellias, while shrubs and vines might have been
agapanthus, agave, St John’s Wort, plumbago, standard roses, begonias, day
lily, jasmine and sometimes maidenhair ferns.
John Street, Camden
In the March 2014
edition of Camden History Joy Riley recalls the Edwardian cottages in John
Street. Joy Riley vividly remembers growing up as a child and calling one of
these cottages her home. ‘I lived at 66 John Street for the first 40 years of
my life before moving to Elderslie with my husband Bruce Riley. The two rooms
of 66 John Street were built by the first John Peat, Camden builder, to come to
Camden. In the 1960s I had some carpet put down in my bedroom, the floor boards
were so hard, as they only used tacks in those days to hold carpet, the carpet
just kept curling up.’ She says, ‘The back of the house was built by my
grandfather, William Dunk. They lived next door at 64 John Street. He also
built the Methodist Church at Orangeville or Werombi.
Yamba Cottage, Kirkham
Another Edwardian style house is Yamba cottage at Kirkham. It was built around 1920, fronts Camden Valley Way and has been a contested as a site of
significant local heritage. The building, a Federation style weatherboard
cottage, became a touchstone and cause celebre around
the preservation and conservation of local domestic architecture. This is a
simple adaption of the earlier Victorian era houses for Fred Longley and his
family who ran a small orchard on the site. The Yamba story is
representative of smallholder farming in the Camden LGA, which has remained
largely silent over the last century.
Yamba speaks for the many small farmers across the LGA who have not had
a voice and were an important part of farming history in the local area.
The Toowoomba House
Edwardian country
cottages are not unique to the Camden area and can be found in many country
towns across New South Wales and inter-state. Toowoomba has a host of these
type of homes and published the local council publishes extensive guides
explaining the style of housing and what is required for their sympathetic
restoration in the online publication called The Toowoomba House (2000). More
elaborate Edwardian houses with extensive ornamentation can be found in Sydney
suburbs like Strathfield, Burwood and Ashfield.
Edwardian Revival
For those interested in reading more there a number of good
books on Australian Edwardian houses at your local library and there are a
number of informative websites. Edwardian style houses have had a revival in
recent decades and contemporary house can have some of their features. For
example some are evident in housing estates at Harrington Park, Mt Annan and
Elderslie.
Further reading
Read more on Edward housing styles in Australia here
Read about Federation houses here
Read about Australian residential architectural styles here
Read about Yamba cottage and Kirkham here
