Claremont Terrace: 31-35 Cobden Street, North Melbourne. Victoria

Claremont Terrace is hidden within the industrial area to the north of the Melbourne CBD and most of the row appears to have been adaptively reused as offices.  

The polychrome brick design is notable but also restrained, with the main focus the window and door framing with a combination of brown and cream brick and highlighted with an orange brick flat arch above the two double hung windows on the top storey of each terrace.   The centre parapet bears the name of the terrace in a framed arch.  However the parapet, stripped of its decorative urns, does reveals the slate roof and the party walls and chimneys from across the street.

According to Melbourne City Council’s 1991 heritage study by Graeme Butler, the construction date of Claremont Terrace is unknown, however there are signs that this is an early Melbourne terrace.  The fact that there is no second storey verandah and the iron lacework is used sparingly restricted to just some small brackets on the verandah give this indication.  Decoration on the whole is modest and the original features are missing in some places at the time of posting.  Even without its decortive urns, it has just a few acanthus scroll corbels. The verandah area is quite small and narrow, featuring just one double hung window and door, indicating just one front room off a hallway inside.  The concave corrugated iron roof is framed by bold projecting party walls and the terrace is built right up to the property line with a simple cast iron fence.

My guess given the style is mid 1870s to mid 1880s.

The property is included in a City of Melbourne heritage overlay HO3.