Willyung Cottage, Stables & Pendeen Homestead Group

Parent Place or Precinct

15595 Pendeen Homestead

Child Places

• 15595 Pendeen Homestead

Statement of Significance

Willyung Cottage and Stables has cultural heritage significance for the following reasons:
The place was built for the Balston family, William Balston being a well-known shipping agent in Albany, and for whom the nearby Pendeen Homestead was also erected.
The place is a fine and well executed and expressed example of the Federation Queen Anne style of architecture that was constructed using locally sourced granite stone.
The place has landmark value being located close to Willyung Road and as a standalone residence in this sparsely developed road.
The place with its main house, stables and other outbuildings retains a high level of authenticity that reflects an early farming homestead property that continues for this purpose.
The place, through Balston, is associated with sea trade and port affairs that developed around the port of Albany in the latter part of the 19th century particularly when Albany was the main port for Western Australia.

Physical Description

Some of the notable features of this place include:
• Set close to Willyung Rd behind a picket fence on the property with old stables
• Originally two separate cottage creating a mirror image of one another
• Central twin projecting gables with two wings either side
• Local granite stone walls with white mortar
• Corrugated iron roof
• Wide rendered architraves on windows and doors
• Four chimneys with moulded tops
• Small verandahs under separate roofs
• High integrity and fair condition – some weather and fire damage on the south wall, some mortar replacement is needed

Some obvious modifications include:
• Internal changes to make two residences into one
• Extension at the rear
• Only the larger stable still remains but is in disrepair

History

Willyung Cottage and Stables and Pendeen Homestead were built for the Balston family on a property of 1,700 acres (688 hectares). The cottages were erected in 1893, which was before the homestead. William Balston was a shipping agent. Willyung Cottage, semi-detached cottages (and stables), were built near the front gate of the property. The semi-detached cottages were a gatehouse and coachman’s quarters (only known as Willyung Cottages since 1994).
A Pendeen neighbour since girlhood in 1912, Evelyn Weston, (aged 94 in 1994) recalled that “Mrs Balston played the lady and every time she came up in her carriage and pair, she waited for the woman in the gatehouse to run out and open the gate. I think the Balston’s had the first cars in the district, Model T cars, sitting bolt upright as if they were going to fall off. Willyung Road was a sandy boggy stretch...”.

A plan of Willyung Cottage and where it is located according to the road was clearly shown on a 1924 road survey (available at the Albany Local Studies Collection).

In c1950 the cottages were subdivided from the Pendeen Homestead estate. Although the cottage now exists as one house it was formerly two distinct and separate dwellings. However, though the two original houses were joined and an internal joining door was cut, the basic original structure of granite walls and jarrah floors remains largely unchanged. In the 1990s a large extension was added to the rear.

Integrity/Authenticity

Integrity: High
Authenticity: High/Moderate

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.