39-49 Brunswick St, Fitzroy

The Terrace

The architect of the Royal Terrace on Brunswick Street was Charles Laing and was designed in 1856 for Hugh Glass, and were allegedly intended to match the row in Gertrude Street. In reality, however they are an interesting composition rising to three stores only at the ends, and with unusual Renaissance stucco detailing. (South Fitzroy Conservation Study 1979). Laing is also the architect of the Queen’s Theatre, Queen St (1846). (Miles Lewis – Colonial Architecture Melbourne).

“A particularly early stuccoed terrace (probably pre 1858) of five two storeyed houses flanked by two of three storeys. The cast iron verandahs and balconies dating from the 1880s replace the original verandah, and the chimney pots and balustraded parapet are of the same date. The corner house is intact, but with the front refaced at first floor level in more recent years, while two other houses have also been defaced, but the original French windows remain, and live well with the later nineteenth century work.” (National Trust Database)

Royal Terrace, 39-49 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, by Charles Laing, 1856-7, waiting room at right c 1863: 1866 photo
La Trobe Collection, State Library of Victoria. Sourced from Miles Lewis – Colonial Architecture Melbourne
National Trust Database – circa 1970s?
Source: Miles Lewis, Gertrude Street Walk, April 2013
Image held by Fitzroy Library. This photograph was commissioned by the Fitzroy Photographic Committee in 1986. The former surgery of Dr. Crooke and adjacent Royal Terrace. By Caroline Philipp
Image held by Fitzroy Library. 1978

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