House

Statement of Significance

House, 104 Walpole Street, Bentley, a timber-framed, fibrous cement clad and metal roofed house with a face brick chimney, is significant for the following reasons:
It is a rare intact surviving example of prefabricated housing built in the Post-War period; and,
It contributes to the community’s sense of place as a tangible reminder of the City of Canning’s growth in the Post-War period.

Aesthetic Value
House, 104 Walpole Street contributes to the streetscape as an example of a Post-War Austerity Cottage.
Historic Values
House, 104 Walpole Street is representative of the period of growth in Bentley immediately following World War II when the suburb grew rapidly, and prefabricated housing was a viable solution.
Social Values
House, 104 Walpole Street contributes to the community’s sense of place as a tangible reminder of the history and development of the City of Canning.
Scientific Values
House, 104 Walpole Street demonstrates the type of pre-fabricated technology the State Government adopted to build houses quickly and economically in the Post-War period.
Rarity
The place is an increasingly rare example of a Post-War timber framed, fibrous cement clad, prefabricated house.
Representativeness
The place is a good representative example of a Post-War Austerity Cottage typical in Bentley during the 1950s.

Physical Description

House, 104 Walpole Street, Bentley is located on the southern side of the street facing Dumond Park. The lot is a nonuniform trapezoidal shape with a wider front boundary than rear boundary. The house is approximately 5 metres from the front boundary which does not have a boundary fence.
The house is asymmetrical with a protruding bay. It has a shallow pitched roof clad in prefinished steel. A skillion verandah is supported by two pairs of square posts. The verandah floor is concrete. The predominant construction is timber frame with fibrous cement flat sheet board cladding. There is a face brick chimney to the eastern gable. The windows have a horizontal emphasis.

History

When the Lands Department asked the Canning Road Board to offer a name for the area east of the junction of Welshpool Road and Albany Highway, they suggested St James Park or Radium Park. Neither was accepted. They then proposed Bentley Park, after John Bentley (1822-1871), a prison warder in charge of a convict gang that were making the Albany Road in the early 1860s. The convict camp established near the present junction of Walpole Street and Albany Highway was known as Bentley’s Hill. The ‘Park’ was dropped in 1956. Some of Bentley, including the convict camp location, was later renamed St James.
Development of Bentley was limited to along Albany Highway. Up to the 1950s, much of the easternmost portion was pine plantations. Land subdivisions and building programs, including War Service and State Housing Commission projects, were the impetus for the suburb’s growth from the 1940s onwards.
The house at 104 Walpole Street is a Post-War house, modest in scale and materiality. It was fairly typical for houses built before 1960 to reflect the Post-War period of austerity and materials shortages, especially State Housing Commission (SHC) houses. Bentley was one of several ‘Housing Commission sponsored areas’ in the metropolitan area, developed in
a decade where around 73% of SHC homes were timber framed, rather than of brick construction.
Aerial photographs show that 104 Walpole Street was built between 1953 and 1965 (Landgate). It is typical of the 1954-1956, SHC pre-cut, timber framed homes. These were being produced by mid-1951 for country towns, and typically comprised two or three bedrooms, kitchen, living room and sometimes a dining room, with wood or fuel stoves, fireplaces and laundry. Influenced by Modernist design, they lacked decoration, but sold well due to their affordability.
Delivered by the SHC to ‘cut out ready to erect and complete in every detail’ they were later referred to as ‘labour only’ homes. The houses could be put up very quickly – sometimes in as little as two weeks, but more ordinarily taking about six weeks. In the first six months of scheme, pre-cut homes were erected in 53 country towns.
Since it worked so successfully in country areas, the scheme was initiated in the Metropolitan area from 1954. In the first six months, 402 pre-cut houses were delivered to Perth suburban locations, with 176 completed in this time.
The Commission believed it was addressing concerns about uniformity as ‘careful planning is provided for alternate siting, which will result in pleasing variation’. There were ten pre-cut designs in use. The pre-cut housing scheme was discontinued in January 1956, on account of the general contraction of the building industry in this period, except for homes in the Northwest. In the five years the scheme had operated, 3,717 pre-cut SHC homes were erected, of which 2,371 were in country areas.
In 1959, State Building Supplies issued a booklet of eleven standard plans for pre-cut homes to make available to the general public the low-cost designs that had been used by the government. Everything except electrical fittings was supplied, with clear instructions so that while it was ‘recommended’ to have a builder supervise it was ‘not necessary’.
Hundreds of tenants under the Commonwealth-State Rental Housing Agreement Act (1945) applied to purchase their rental homes in the 1950s. The 1956 Housing Agreement Act further moved focus away from rental properties to encouraging home ownership and divested power to the States to determine the terms on which homes were to be offered to applicants. By 1956, there were 356 houses in Bentley under the Housing Agreement Act, and today, most are in private ownership.
Aerial photographs show that the protruding bay and front gable to the original hipped roof was added between 1965 and 1974, although the style still seems in keeping with a SHC standard plan. More research would determine if 104 Walpole Street was built by the SHC. The SHC Annual Reports sometimes identified specific street addresses. A historical
Certificate of Title search or Rates Book search is another avenue which may assist.

Integrity/Authenticity

Condition - Good
Integrity - High

Condition

Good

Uses

Historic Themes

Creation Date

Publish place record online (inHerit):

Last Update

Disclaimer

This information is provided voluntarily as a public service. The information provided is made available in good faith and is derived from sources believed to be reliable and accurate. However, the information is provided solely on the basis that readers will be responsible for making their own assessment of the matters discussed herein and are advised to verify all relevant representations, statements and information.