Scone Post Office is a heritage-listed post office at 117 Liverpool Street, Scone, New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by the New South Wales Colonial Architect's office under the control of James Barnet and built in 1879. It was added to the Australian Commonwealth Heritage List on 22 August 2012.
History
Scone is located in the Hunter Valley, north of Sydney. The town is the commercial and administrative centre of a pastoral, agricultural and dairying district noted for its horse and cattle studs. The first European in the area was surveyor Henry Dangar who, in 1824, passed by the area just west of the present town site and crossed over the Liverpool Range. Dangar's favourable report on the district led to an immediate land grab by wealthy settlers including Francis Little who established Invermein in 1825. A village named Redbank began to emerge by 1828 but the traffic began to shift to the east following a new route (the Great North Road) into the Hunter Valley. In 1836, an inn and store were established adjacent to this track, forming the beginnings of the settlement of Scone. The newer settlement, officially called Invermein was later gazetted in 1837 as Scone. Development proceeded, albeit slowly, in the 1840s, with an Anglican church, school and a courthouse. A national school opened in 1863 and in 1871, the railway arrived.
A telegraph office was established at Scone in 1877, and in 1879, the current building (post and telegraph office with associated quarters) was constructed by the New South Wales Colonial Architect's office under the control of James Barnet. Additions to this building were undertaken in 1908 by the New South Wales Government Architect's Office architect Walter Vernon and in 1914 by the Commonwealth Department of Works and Railways Office under George Oakeshott/E. Henderson. A small addition was added to the Liverpool Street frontage, and in the 1960s a further single-storey addition provided a post office box lobby and additional staff areas along the Liverpool Street frontage.
Description
Scone Post Office is at 117 Liverpool Street, corner Kelly Street, Scone, comprising the whole of Lot 3 DP 700953.
Scone Post Office is a substantial double-storey, hipped-roof brick building which dates from 1879, with later additions, and is located on the south-west corner of the town's major intersection, Liverpool and Kelly Streets. The building had its main entrance to the north (Liverpool Street), with the quarters originally entered from the east (Kelly Street).
The original 1870s posted verandah to Liverpool Street was removed to make way for the Federation-era addition which enlarged the main postal chamber. This addition includes recessed panels of rough cast stucco to the brickwork and is framed with a brick coping. The main entrance bay is set slightly forward of the flanking bays. The entry door has a fanlight and fixed sidelights. A concrete ramp and steps are a later addition. The balcony roof is a skillion roof form but there is a small gablet positioned above the entrance. Originally the balcony roof was supported by pairs - with the exception of the clustered set of three to the corner - of timber posts. These are visible to the interior of the balcony where they intersect the later infill glazing. To Kelly Street, the front ground floor window and the surrounding wall (nearest Liverpool Street) are part of a Federation addition. The join in the brickwork is clearly evident, and there is a step in the rendered plinth. Two windows have bracketed sun hoods, with shingle roofs. The arches of the windows are without keystones, but the door and blind door have accentuated keystones. The first floor on this side has three evenly spaced windows with similarly treated heads. This area is defined with a faux palisade fence on a new brick base. A path leads to the "side" doorway. The blind door beside the side door would lead to the main chamber. The brickwork is executed in garden wall bond. The three windows upstairs include a blind window (at the upstairs landing). It would seem that this approach was to assist with a symmetrical composition, as a further blind window has been used in the design on the ground floor. Windows have wide sills, supported by brackets as seen in the post office buildings at Muswellbrook and Maitland. The roof to the main building is a double hipped form with brick chimneys and rendered caps without pots.