Heritage lost

The house at 81 Victoria St, Warragul was part of the historic landscape of the precinct and a part of the town’s early residential development.

Recorded in Baw Baw Shire’s heritage register, 81 and 83 Victoria St, are listed as “two Victorian era houses.”

The house, and the adjacent Warragul Childcare Centre premises at 83 Victoria St, are part of the heritage significant Victoria St precinct, which also included the Wesleyan Methodist church built in 1881.

The heritage register said the subject land on the south-west corner of Albert and Victoria Sts was sold in 1884 to Joseph Witton who sold two years later to Gilbert Gardiner.

By 1904 four houses had been built on the land - two facing Victoria St and two facing Albert St.

Local historian Malcolm Dickson said his grandmother Margaret Beard lived at 81 Victoria St from 1912 when she married Arthur Beard. Malcolm’s mother Neta Dickson owned the house until 1959.

The house was then purchased by Elaine Milne who bought the house after selling a building at 97 Queen St (that she part owned with family) to The Gazette’s Keith Hopkins in 1960.