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Muswellbrook Post Office
Muswellbrook Post Office is a heritage-listed post office at 7 Bridge Street, Muswellbrook, New South Wales, Australia. It was added to the Australian Commonwealth Heritage List on 08 November 2011.
The Muswellbrook Post Office was erected in two stages. The first section (to the rear of the site) was constructed as a post or telegraph office in 1861, possibly by Colonial Architect Alexander Dawson. The second portion of the building was designed by Dawson's successor as Colonial Architect, James Barnet, and erected in 1885. The building contained both a post and a telegraph office by 1878. The telegraph office continued for a time in the 1861 building after the present post office in front of it was completed. The 1880s works also included upstairs quarters.
Muswellbrook Post Office is at 7 Bridge Street, Muswellbrook, comprising the whole of Lot 17 DP758740.
Muswellbrook had both a post and a telegraph office by 1878. This appears to have been in an 1861 building at the rear of the present post office building fronting Bridge Street, which was constructed in 1883–5. The whole 1861-1885 fabric is taken as being the original complex for purposes of this survey. The telegraph office continued for a time in the 1861 building after the present post office in front of it was completed. The combined buildings have three distinct components. Maisy Stapleton's 1981 roof plan, included with the original submission for the Register of the National Estate, shows the current post office as an oblong mass fronting Bridge Street with a return verandah to the west and south. Behind that are two more blocks, listed as "rendered outbuildings" and linked by covered walkways. These appear to be the 1861-1878 fabric.
Details of construction and form largely relate to the 1883-5 component. This was two storied, possibly with a stucco rendered exterior (resprayed in 1968 with a sprayed concrete finish). The roof is hipped, evidently timber-framed, and is clad with corrugated colorbond, and supported on a broad eave with planking soffits. One chimney is visible from the street: it has a cornice and the stack has a sprayed concrete finish with the high points screed off. The chimney has four terracotta pots. The original roof is a double-hip form, which drains to a rainhead under the rear eaves. Fabric indicates that another rainhead may have been removed, and its downpipe connected to the upper gutter. The post office at Scone still uses this method of disposal of rainwater from box gutters. The verandah roof is shed- framed and clad in corrugated colorbond, supported on a set of octagonal, tapered posts. There is a verandah frieze in a floral pattern which resembles cast iron lace but is actually in fretted timber. The verandah also has an Italianate railing with waisted balusters in cast iron. The verandah base is coursed and rendered. The floor has modern, non slip tiles, over concrete. There is a flagpole fitted to one of the verandah posts.
The walls have a sprayed concrete finish and there are wide bracketed sills to the windows. The simple rendered arches have been overcoated. The windows are double hung, with scotia horns and a light arch effect in the top rail of the upper sash.
Fenestration is in a broadly symmetrical pattern, apart from a single window on the ground floor. These windows all have segmental heads with prominent drip mouldings on both floors, and bracketed sills. The frames are double-hung sashes with single panes. On the first floor the three central windows facing Bridge Street are clustered in a trio, and this is matched on the ground floor by a central set of windows, of similar width to the upstairs window trio. Entry is by two sets of steps at each end of the verandah, and by a pedestrian ramp on the north side. The pattern of two flanking windows on the Bridge Street frontage at the first floor is matched by corresponding window placement on the south end of the ground floor. But a door and window to the north side are relocated off symmetry. Window placement to the south elevation is regular, though the south side extension simply continues the first floor course line as a parapet, and encompasses two small parcel room windows at its rear. The encircling verandah gives the two-storey design a "through-the-roof" appearance.
Various unspecified repairs were made in 1890 and 1895. A car port-garage was added at the rear of the 1861-78 blocks. It has the appearance of 1950s construction, with a stud frame and rusticated weatherboards. The store room for bikes has a concrete floor and a roller shutter. The principal alterations, though, appear to have been in reassigning spaces in the former post office buildings of 1861–78. These currently house two storerooms, a lunch room, a postmen's area, a contractors' room, male toilets and locker room, cleaner's room, foyer, two verandahs and a bike shed. The upstairs quarters of 1883-5 have been refitted to provide a lunch room, a postal manager's office, cleaner's room, tea room and store, though the valuation report still lists this area as 'an old manager's residence including two bedrooms, a study, bathroom and kitchen, and also lists executive-style office suites as being in the building. There is no upstairs bathroom.
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Muswellbrook Post Office
Muswellbrook Post Office is a heritage-listed post office at 7 Bridge Street, Muswellbrook, New South Wales, Australia. It was added to the Australian Commonwealth Heritage List on 08 November 2011.
The Muswellbrook Post Office was erected in two stages. The first section (to the rear of the site) was constructed as a post or telegraph office in 1861, possibly by Colonial Architect Alexander Dawson. The second portion of the building was designed by Dawson's successor as Colonial Architect, James Barnet, and erected in 1885. The building contained both a post and a telegraph office by 1878. The telegraph office continued for a time in the 1861 building after the present post office in front of it was completed. The 1880s works also included upstairs quarters.
Muswellbrook Post Office is at 7 Bridge Street, Muswellbrook, comprising the whole of Lot 17 DP758740.
Muswellbrook had both a post and a telegraph office by 1878. This appears to have been in an 1861 building at the rear of the present post office building fronting Bridge Street, which was constructed in 1883–5. The whole 1861-1885 fabric is taken as being the original complex for purposes of this survey. The telegraph office continued for a time in the 1861 building after the present post office in front of it was completed. The combined buildings have three distinct components. Maisy Stapleton's 1981 roof plan, included with the original submission for the Register of the National Estate, shows the current post office as an oblong mass fronting Bridge Street with a return verandah to the west and south. Behind that are two more blocks, listed as "rendered outbuildings" and linked by covered walkways. These appear to be the 1861-1878 fabric.
Details of construction and form largely relate to the 1883-5 component. This was two storied, possibly with a stucco rendered exterior (resprayed in 1968 with a sprayed concrete finish). The roof is hipped, evidently timber-framed, and is clad with corrugated colorbond, and supported on a broad eave with planking soffits. One chimney is visible from the street: it has a cornice and the stack has a sprayed concrete finish with the high points screed off. The chimney has four terracotta pots. The original roof is a double-hip form, which drains to a rainhead under the rear eaves. Fabric indicates that another rainhead may have been removed, and its downpipe connected to the upper gutter. The post office at Scone still uses this method of disposal of rainwater from box gutters. The verandah roof is shed- framed and clad in corrugated colorbond, supported on a set of octagonal, tapered posts. There is a verandah frieze in a floral pattern which resembles cast iron lace but is actually in fretted timber. The verandah also has an Italianate railing with waisted balusters in cast iron. The verandah base is coursed and rendered. The floor has modern, non slip tiles, over concrete. There is a flagpole fitted to one of the verandah posts.
The walls have a sprayed concrete finish and there are wide bracketed sills to the windows. The simple rendered arches have been overcoated. The windows are double hung, with scotia horns and a light arch effect in the top rail of the upper sash.
Fenestration is in a broadly symmetrical pattern, apart from a single window on the ground floor. These windows all have segmental heads with prominent drip mouldings on both floors, and bracketed sills. The frames are double-hung sashes with single panes. On the first floor the three central windows facing Bridge Street are clustered in a trio, and this is matched on the ground floor by a central set of windows, of similar width to the upstairs window trio. Entry is by two sets of steps at each end of the verandah, and by a pedestrian ramp on the north side. The pattern of two flanking windows on the Bridge Street frontage at the first floor is matched by corresponding window placement on the south end of the ground floor. But a door and window to the north side are relocated off symmetry. Window placement to the south elevation is regular, though the south side extension simply continues the first floor course line as a parapet, and encompasses two small parcel room windows at its rear. The encircling verandah gives the two-storey design a "through-the-roof" appearance.
Various unspecified repairs were made in 1890 and 1895. A car port-garage was added at the rear of the 1861-78 blocks. It has the appearance of 1950s construction, with a stud frame and rusticated weatherboards. The store room for bikes has a concrete floor and a roller shutter. The principal alterations, though, appear to have been in reassigning spaces in the former post office buildings of 1861–78. These currently house two storerooms, a lunch room, a postmen's area, a contractors' room, male toilets and locker room, cleaner's room, foyer, two verandahs and a bike shed. The upstairs quarters of 1883-5 have been refitted to provide a lunch room, a postal manager's office, cleaner's room, tea room and store, though the valuation report still lists this area as 'an old manager's residence including two bedrooms, a study, bathroom and kitchen, and also lists executive-style office suites as being in the building. There is no upstairs bathroom.