Rotunda Architectural Trail Walk (Sandringham)

Walk Summary:

Start: 15 Melrose Street, Sandringham
Distance: 2.9 kilometres
Walking Time: About 50 minutes
Undulations: The trail path has gentle to moderate undulations

Trail directions:

1. Shop
Address: 15 Melrose St, Sandringham
Style: Queen Anne, Edwardian
Architects: Sydney, Smith & Ogg
Date: 1903

Melrose Street was first created in the Sandringham Estate in 1882. The shop at no. 15, the oldest surviving building in the street, was built for Mr Thomas Kevan as a newsagency. It was designed by the architects Sydney, Smith & Ogg, who also designed many pubs, including the Bendigo Hotel in Collingwood (1911, probably with Robert Haddon) and many State Bank branches in the early twentieth century. Charles Alfred Ogg lived in Dendy Street, Brighton and is buried at the Brighton General Cemetery in an exceptionally grand tomb.

The upper-level facade has brilliant aqua tiles and a deep floral frieze to either side of the central bay window, with timber shingles below. In the 1940s, the building became a cake shop called 'The Blue Bowl' (a reference to its striking use of blue chinaware). It is a beautiful and elegant building.

2. Band Rotunda
Address: Beach Rd, Sandringham (opp. Melrose St)
Style: Early 20th Cent. Modern, Arts & Crafts, Stripp. Class.
Architect: W T Sunderland (Engineer)
Date: 1926

The Band Rotunda on the foreshore was a gift from a local doctor and soldier, Dr Thomas Garnet Leary, to the people of Sandringham. It was designed by the City Engineer, W T Sunderland, who designed a number of other reinforced concrete structures in Bayside, notably his own house in Bamfield Street and the All Souls Anglican Church (both on this trail).

The rotunda is a highly integrated composition of squares, circles and diagonals and is placed to terminate the vista along Melrose Street to the Bay. Above the corner buttresses are projecting curved balconies that effectively create a circular plan on the upper level. The rotunda was restored in 1986 and again in 2004 to remedy the effects of 'concrete cancer', caused by rusting of the steel reinforcing. It is a focal point along Beach Road and is often used for weddings and fetes.

3. Espedair
Address: 114 The Crescent, Sandringham
Style: Italianate, Queen Anne
Architect: Unknown
Date: 1895

Built in 1895 by George Brown, Espedair is an Italianate villa with the standard Brighton tower, but topped by unusual castle-like battlements. Its style is predominantly that of the 1880s, except for the slightly Queen Anne bay window and gable detail above, making it a very interesting example of the
transition between the two styles.

It is said that the people who lived at Espedair in its early days would watch from the tower for the mail boat to enter Port Phillip Bay. The original verandah, which probably extended from the tower then around the front, has been removed, leaving the house looking incomplete.

4. Residence
Address: 112 The Crescent, Sandringham
Style: English Revival, Picturesque
Architect: Bernard Evans
Date: c.1935

This residence is known locally as the 'Peppermint House' because of its bright green colour. The facade is dominated by half timbering, while sections of brick banding underpin the slightly projecting first floor bay. The house was constructed with clinker brick detailing, especially around the windows, and has a textured render finish. There are two cantilevered bay windows with diamond-pattern leadlighting, and a tall brick chimney. All the details are characteristic of the English Revival style.

Bernard Evans was a versatile architect with a long career who designed in the Moderne and Tudor Revival style in the 1930s, and Modernist in the 1950s, when he was also briefly Mayor of the City of Melbourne. In Brighton he also designed the Arts & Crafts-style house at 72 The Esplanade in 1930. Other name: Peppermint House

5. Coggeshall
Address: 92 Beach Rd, Sandringham (cnr Bamfield St)
Style: Italianate
Architect: A Taylor
Date: 1876

A gentleman's seaside villa, Coggeshall was built for David Abbott in 1876. Abbott was a solicitor, a Moorabbin Shire Councillor and one of the founding members of the Royal Melbourne Golf Club.

In the 1920s, the Sandringham Club purchased the property, making additions such as the tennis court and the bowling green where the garden once was. The stone fence along the Beach Road boundary was constructed from ferruginous sandstone (containing iron, and rustcoloured) quarried from local cliffs. Although it is in poor condition, it is an important example of building techniques used in the early development of Bayside.

This single-storey brown brick villa has tall and narrow windows along the front elevation. The concave-roofed verandah wraps around the building in a classic Victorian-era manner, and the brick beach-front entrance porch was recently reconstructed, but without its small tower. Sandringham Club members can still be seen taking advantage of the facilities at a leisurely pace. Other name: Sandringham Club

6. Residence
Address: 7 & 9 Georgiana St, Sandringham
Style: Mediterranean, Moderne
Architect: Unknown
Date: 1930s

What at first looks like a large, tastefully styled house spreading across two blocks is in fact a duplex (a pair of semi-detached houses). Unlike most such developments in the inter-war period, the two houses were not designed as a symmetrical pair. Instead, they were given different arrangements so that each house has a separate identity and entry, but in a matching style.

The design uses a number of different generalised domestic motifs rather than displaying a single 'style'. It has a Mediterranean arched portico and stucco upper wall, English Revival textured brick lower wall and detailing, and a horizontal emphasis that might be Moderne (especially notable on the wall enclosing the generous front garden).

7. Coombe
Address: 6 King St, Sandringham
Style: Italianate
Architect: Unknown
Date: 1885

In 1881, the first police station in Sandringham was established in the Gipsy Village subdivision. Coombe was the original policeman's residence. Before this time, the nearest station was in Brighton.

This house is a fairly typical Victorian weatherboard villa and one of the few remaining older buildings in the Gipsy Village subdivision, although it is not from the 1850s. The projecting hipped roof bay has a quaint scalloped window hood and the verandah is supported on turned timber posts with cast-iron lacework.

8. Alpha
Address: 23 Bamfield St, Sandringham
Style: Early 20th C Modern, Arts & Crafts
Architect: W T Sunderland (Engineer)
Date: 1921-22

W T Sunderland was the City Engineer in Sandringham in the 1920s and had a particular interest in the possibilities of concrete. He built a number of concrete houses in Castlemaine before coming to Sandringham, where he built this concrete house for himself. Alpha is an asymmetrical composition of cubic forms; a deep projecting cornice runs around the house, providing a strong horizontal emphasis. All roofs are concealed behind a parapet, while the upper storey is set back. Alpha was extremely innovative for its time and has more similarities with the early work of Frank Lloyd Wright, and with modernist work of the early 1930s, than with styles typical of the 1920s.

W T Sunderland's municipal work can still be seen at a small section of fence at the Trevor Barker Oval (Sandringham Football Club), and at the Rotunda in Melrose Street; he was also the engineer for All Souls Church in Bay Road, Sandringham. He patented the popular cement penetration method of road construction. It is interesting to consider that although Sunderland was not an architect, he created a design that reflected some of the most advanced architectural thinking of the 1920s.

9. Bayside Police Station
Address: 25 Abbott St Sandringham
Style: Neo Modern
Architects: Francis-Jones Morehen Thorp Pty Ltd
Date: 2010

The Sandringham Police Station is an inviting civic building that respects the function of its inhabitants but also ensures the building sits comfortably within its surroundings. The police station is a building that is environmentally sustainable, operationally effective and appropriately scaled. The architects sought to maximise natural light into all work areas and provide as much induced local and native greenery into the perimeter as possible in order to provide a comfortable and optimum level of working environment.

Citation - "A new addition to the Sandringham village that breaks with tradition and provides a broad modernist, sculptured facade to the street, concealing more utilitarian elements to the rear."

10. Sandringham Signal Box
Address: Station St at Abbott St, Sandringham
Style: Vernacular
Architects: Victorian Railways
Date: c.1889

This is a standard late-Victorian elevated timber signal box with timber approach steps and gable decoration. The design is typical of many late-nineteenth century installations coinciding with the introduction of 'interlocking' to the Victorian railways, a safety system of linked bells, signals and gates operated by levers and telegraph. The box forms a locally important group with the station building and the former tram depot.

In 1915 the present 26-lever cam and tappet machine was provided in the present box at Abbott Street, replacing the hand-operated gates with remote controlled wheel operated gates.

11. All Souls Anglican Church
Address: 48 Bay Rd, Sandringham
Style: Arts & Craft, Gothic Revival
Architects: North & Williams, W T Sunderland (Engineer)
Date: 1919-21

The current All Souls Anglican Church was built to replace a timber church on this site, which had an interesting history. That church had been constructed in the 1880s at Queen's Square, in 'Gipsy Village', the first settlement in the Sandringham area, which was overtaken as the centre of town after the railway was extended to Sandringham station in 1886. The church was moved here and re-erected in 1904.

Reinforced concrete was chosen over brick as it was quoted as being much cheaper (and Sunderland, the engineer and a leading exponent of its use, was a warden of the church). All Souls is believed to be the first church in Australia to be constructed of reinforced concrete. In 1986, the building was renovated, and in 1992 a colourful addition was added: a memorial stained-glass window designed by Maurice Evans and made by Toucan Glass Studio in Brighton.

North & Williams designed most Anglican churches in Victoria at that time and worked in partnership for over 50 years. Many of the churches they designed were in an Arts & Crafts version of the Gothic style.

A. The Smith Great Aussie Home
Address: 233 Beach Rd, Black Rock
Style: Contemporary, Neo Modern
Architect: Cassandra Complex
Date: 2006

Intricate and imaginative architects Cassandra Complex have created a dream home for their client. This colourful and adventurous design is a refreshing example of contemporary architecture.

A swimming pool wraps around the upper level north and west elevations. Australian icons such as the game of cricket are incorporated into the building; an example is the balustrade made from cricket stumps. The use of colour and detail is both striking and fun.

The geometric ceiling articulation was influenced by the amazing Capitol Theatre, Swanston St, Melbourne (1924), designed by Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin. Cassandra Fahey, director of Cassandra Complex, is well known for other projects such as the Platypusary at Healesville Sanctuary (2005) and the 'Pamela Anderson' facade of the Newman House, St Kilda West (2002).