Rochester Terrace and St Vincent Place: History, Architecture and Heritage
Rochester Terrace is a row of ten nineteenth-century houses at 33–51 St Vincent Place, facing St Vincent Gardens in Albert Park, Melbourne. Built in two stages during the 1860s and 1870s, it forms the architectural centrepiece of the wider St Vincent Place heritage precinct.
The City of Port Phillip describes Rochester Terrace as one of Melbourne’s most commanding and coherently designed terrace rows. Its formal composition, ornate cast-iron decoration and relationship with the gardens make it an unusually complete Australian interpretation of the English residential square.
St Vincent Place and the garden-square plan
St Vincent Place was planned during the rapid growth of Emerald Hill, the district now associated with South Melbourne and Albert Park.
Surveyor Clement Hodgkinson laid out St Vincent Place in 1858. The design arranged residential allotments around a substantial public garden, drawing on the garden squares and residential crescents found in London and other English cities. Unlike a conventional Melbourne street grid, the houses were intended to face a shared landscaped space.
The first land sales around St Vincent Gardens took place on 13 December 1864. Development continued over the following decades, producing a mixture of detached villas, modest houses and elaborate terraces.
The surviving precinct includes St Vincent Gardens, the surrounding residential buildings and the roads and footpaths of St Vincent Place. It is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register as the St Vincent Place Precinct, reference H1291.
The construction of Rochester Terrace
South Melbourne auctioneer and estate agent William Parton Buckhurst purchased several allotments after the 1864 subdivision. These included four allotments on the southern side of St Vincent Gardens near Montague Street.
The first six houses of Rochester Terrace, now numbered 33–43 St Vincent Place, were built in 1869. Each was originally planned as an eight-room residence. Four more houses, now numbered 45–51, were added by 1879, completing the ten-house composition.
The City of Port Phillip’s heritage study records the construction cost as £10,000, a considerable investment for the period.
The terrace was designed by Charles Boykett. Following his death, his son Charles Bolton Boykett completed the row. The municipal heritage assessment notes that no other work of comparable scale or architectural accomplishment is known to have been produced by either designer.
Buckhurst named the development Rochester Terrace after Rochester, England, where he had been born.
Architecture
Although Rochester Terrace consists of ten individual residences, it was designed to appear as a single monumental building.
The row follows a symmetrical, pavilion-based composition. A dominant central section is balanced by substantial end pavilions, with lower connecting wings between them. This arrangement gives the terrace a sense of order and grandeur when viewed across St Vincent Gardens.
The central and end pavilions feature rendered decoration, ground-floor loggias and fluted colonnades above. The connecting houses have lighter cast-iron verandah ornament arranged in a consistent pattern. This contrast allows the principal pavilions to appear visually heavier while maintaining continuity across the entire row.
The original cast-iron picket fence survives along the front and sides of the gardens. The City of Port Phillip considers this fence an integral part of the terrace’s heritage significance.
The result is an Australian terrace development with a particularly strong connection to nineteenth-century English models. Rather than being a loose collection of adjoining houses, Rochester Terrace was conceived as a unified architectural composition addressing the garden square.
Early occupants
Rochester Terrace was built as an investment, and its houses were leased to a number of prominent Melbourne residents.
During the 1870s, Buckhurst’s tenants included:
- Samuel Mullen, bookseller
- George Robertson, bookseller and publisher
- Thomas B. Guest, biscuit manufacturer
- R. Martin, homeopathic chemist
- David Elder, accountant
Thomas Guest later occupied the nearby house now known as The Elms at 53 St Vincent Place. That property forms another important element of the surrounding historic streetscape.
These residents reflect the professional and commercial character of the neighbourhood during the second half of the nineteenth century. St Vincent Place offered well-appointed housing close to Melbourne while maintaining the setting and social prestige of a landscaped residential square.
Heritage significance
Rochester Terrace is protected both as an individual heritage place and as part of the wider St Vincent Place precinct.
It is covered by Heritage Overlay HO340 in the Port Phillip Planning Scheme and is included on the Victorian Heritage Register under references H0813 and H1291.
The City of Port Phillip’s heritage citation identifies Rochester Terrace as one of Australia’s most elegantly planned and detailed terrace rows. Its significance rests on several related qualities:
- its strong adherence to the English terrace model;
- the unified design of ten separate residences;
- the central and end-pavilion composition;
- its surviving cast-iron verandah ornament and fencing;
- its visual relationship with St Vincent Gardens; and
- its place within the broader nineteenth-century development of St Vincent Place.
The terrace is particularly important because its architecture cannot be understood in isolation from the gardens. Its long, symmetrical façade was designed to be seen across the landscaped square, while the gardens derive much of their character from the surrounding residential buildings.
A University of Melbourne history essay
An early study of the site was prepared by D. L. Richards under the title Rochester Terrace and St. Vincent’s Place, South Melbourne.
The work is listed in a historical catalogue of the University of Melbourne Architecture and Planning Library:
Richards, D. L. Rochester Terrace and St. Vincent’s Place, South Melbourne. History essay, University of Melbourne, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning. Architecture Thesis Collection, catalogue T0234.
Historical photographs and further research
The State Library of Victoria holds substantial photographic material relating to St Vincent Place.
Its collections include more than 200 photographs taken by the Committee for Urban Action during the 1970s and a smaller group by architectural photographer John T. Collins. These images document individual houses, terraces, gardens and streetscapes, including features that may subsequently have been altered.
Researchers can explore the State Library of Victoria’s St Vincent Place collection.
Images should not be republished without first checking the rights statement attached to the individual catalogue record.
References
- City of Port Phillip, “Rochester Terrace,” citation 1030, Port Phillip Heritage Review, Volume 6: S–Z. Read the heritage report.
- Victorian Heritage Database, “St Vincent Place Precinct,” Victorian Heritage Register H1291. View the database record.
- Victorian Heritage Database, “Rochester Terrace,” Victorian Heritage Register H0813. View the database report.
- State Library of Victoria, St Vincent Place photographic collections. Search the collection.