Agincourt: 13-15 Collins Street, Annandale. Sydney, New South Wales
Set within a suburb with some fantastic examples of 1880s architecture is this unusual semi-detached pair of Victorian Italianate villas named Agincourt. Each house is asymmetrical, but the pair combines to a unique create symmetry and among the notable features are the campanile-like towers and the restrained ornament used to best effect.
The villas feature a slade hip roof and pyramid roof on the towers, with a prominent bargeboard frame complete with wooden finial. The facade features double hung windows with Romanesque window mouldings and ledges with a string course flowing from either side of the windows on the upper level above which sits an unusual small circular window, adding a slight mannerist touch.
Where the terraces meet toward the centre is a traditional Victorian terrace house double storey verandah split by the party wall. In contrast to the main roof, the verandah roofs are of corrugated iron. The balustrade is decorated in vertically oriented iron lacework, yet is the only area of the villas which are. A gable breaks front of the hipped verandah roof at ground level, also topped by a tall turned wood finial, framing the doorway and providing a counterpart to the tower. Elsewhere the fringes are laden with wooden lattice overlaid with hanging fretted boards propped up by clusters of cast iron corinthian columns while a single wooden pendant provides a counterpoint to the gable.
Agincourt possibly derives its name from the English spelling of the French commune Azincourt.
In great condition, although turned into flats, Agincourt is listed on the National Register of Historic Estate, NSW Heritage Register and local Leichart Council giving them comprehensive heritage protection.
