Terrace Houses: 154-160 Carrington Street, Adelaide. South Australia

The row of four double storey bluestone terrace houses in this photo was built in 1878 one of several speculative developments by builder Simon Harvey. The terrace presents mainly to Carrington Street but has sides facing Royal Place and Pulteney Street and forms part of a magnificent collection of Victorian era terraces around Hurtle Square.

The most notable aspects of this terrace is the dominance of the roof, the unusual spacing of verandah posts, the positioning above the city footpath and the wholeness of the composition.

The massive hipped roof is punctuated only by six chimneys – one in the middle of each house and one additional chimney at the back of each end terrace. The eaves are supported by coupled wooden brackets. The facade is in bluestone with stucco moudings on the corners and around the windows. The windows have bluestone ledges. A string course defines each level and the sides are also defined with doors and windows. There is really little separating the houses – only the side-by-side pairing of the doors gives a hint contrary to it being a large single building.

The double storey verandah has a hipped corrugated iron roof painted in alternating bands of colour as was fashionable around Australia in the late 1870s for terraces and commercial buildings. The verandah is open on both sides and provides outstanding symmetry. In contrast the posts and their spacing are of particular interest. The posts at the upper storey appear to be spaced to allow uninterrupted views over the square, while the posts of the lower storey appear to be similarly designed with coupled posts featuring brackets facing in opposite directions. The composition appears at ones clumsy but intricate. Each of the posts is plain with wooden brackets. There is minimal iron lacework in the form of a very simple vertical panelled balustrade on the upper storey.

The terraces were purchased in 1882 by pastoralist James Cudmore and remained in his family for almost three decades.

In 1976 the row was purchased by the South Australian Housing Trust.

The terrace houses are protected with state heritage significance having been added to the SA Heritage Register (H0200997) on 1st November 2001.