Place:
21-23 Mitchell Street Kalkallo
Place No.- 53
Type: House
Location: 21-23 Mitchell Street, Kalkallo
Critical Date(s): c.1890s?, 1940s
Historic Theme(s): Building settlements, towns and cities: Making settlements to serve rural
Australia
Previous Heritage Registration(s): None
Recommended Level of Significance: Local
Statement of Significance:
The house and the surrounding trees and garden are of local (Kalkallo) architectural and
historical interest for their good representation of the early twentieth century development of the
area, for their long association with the local Henderson family, and also possibly with the
Beveridge State School. The house is a rare intact example of period housing in this area,
demonstrating both the limited development in Kalkallo, and the relatively simple and
inexpensive form of housing that typified the area.
Description:
Located on the south-west corner Patterson Street, this typical weatherboard and fibrous
cement sheet clad house is surrounded by related landscape including Canary Island date palm,
Monterey pines and cypress.
History:
The property is part of the resubdivision of the former Sections 1, 2 and 6 of the
Township of Kalkallo which was approved in October 1926 after lodgement in March 1925.
The Sections were originally sold in small lots in 1855, but this corner of Kalkallo does not
appear to have been developed.
The present site became lot nine of Section Six in the new configuration, but previously
in the 1920s it was in part of lots 1-10, comprising five acres, owned by Kalkallo farmer Charles
Gordon and later Claud Cotchin (a pioneering family of Woodstock). In 1940-1, John
Henderson, also a Kalkallo farmer, erected a new house on this site which by then had been
reduced to one acre. It was described as brick with five rooms. By 1944-5 a weatherboard and
cement sheet house with 5 rooms stood on a half acre of property owned by Ronald C
Henderson and costing £400 (RB194405, 19192, 19192A). This was likely the present house,
which it is believed was shifted to this site in the 1940s from Beveridge, where it had been one
of two school houses dating from the 1890s (the other having also been sold in the 1960s). It
was shifted to this site by Mr Cotchin.1
Cecily Tudehope’s plan of old Kalkallo township published in 1962 shows some of the
mostly demolished structures which had historically occupied the town lots, including Ron
Henderson on this property and Jack Henderson on the opposite corner of the same block, and
another to the south. Both properties were once part of the old Kalkallo race course while this
one (along with other lots) was first purchased by John Yewers in 1855 as an area of 2 roods.
Condition & Integrity:
Good
Context / Comparative Analysis:
The house and trees are set in flat open pastures with diverse era housing built on the
former town lots. Another earlier house has been identified (see Whittlesea heritage study
Region 3 place 3.12 as adjoining 21-23 Mitchell Street).
References:
Township Plan Kalkallo (or Donnybrook) CA9/6 J Yewers 1855 area: 0.20.
RGO VTO plan room search note
(RB194405, 19192, 19192a).
Cecily Tudehope, Kalkallo: a link with the Past, 1962.
Payne, p.139-, town Plan Kalkallo
Plan of the Town of Donnybrook, Parish of Kalkallo, County of Bourke. June 30, 1850.
Recommendations:
Recommended for inclusion in the Heritage Overlay of the Hume Planning Scheme,
including trees (pine and cypress trees to south and west, and Canary Island palm in front).
1
Current owner, personal conversation, 7th November 2003.