Heritage significance and executive director recommendation to the


Telephone Exchange sites which feature a wide range of construction periods (not in the VHR)



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3. Telephone Exchange sites which feature a wide range of construction periods (not in the VHR)

Windsor Post Office and Telephone Exchange building complex (1907-08 to 1970s) – Not in VHR

Windsor’s first telephone exchange, operational for a number of years prior to the beginning of the twentieth century, was in a small post office building adjoining its 1886 railway station. The existing exchange complex at Windsor comprises three adjoining buildings which each extend between Peel and Albert Streets. The earliest – the 1907-08 Windsor Post Office and Telephone Exchange, a finely detailed and innovative example of Edwardian Free Style design with Arts and Crafts leanings – was built to the design of H J MacKennal of the Commonwealth Department of Home Affairs. The reinforced concrete frame which carries much of its structure was designed by John Monash and is an early example of the use of this technique in Australian building. Delays in installing and commissioning the telephone exchange equipment meant that it did not commence operation from this building until September 1910.

A two-storey building was added to the east of this in 1938 to accommodate the exchange’s expansion and conversion to automatic switching. In the mid-1970s a large seven-storey plus basement Modern cream-coloured face brick exchange building was constructed to the east of the 1938 exchange.



Windsor Telephone Exchange complex: Albert St (left) and Peel St (right) (March 2017)


Hawthorn Post Office and telephone exchange building complex (1908-09) – Not in VHR

The former Hawthorn Post Office was constructed in 1908-9 as a post office intended to incorporate a telephone exchange. It is a two-storey red brick building with freestone and over-painted rendered brick dressings. The Hawthorn manual telephone exchange was relocated to this building from the local Town Hall in 1911. Designed by Victorian Public Works Department architect, Samuel Brittingham, for the Commonwealth, the former Hawthorn Post Office building is a flamboyant example of Federation design. It combines Queen Anne and English Baroque Revival detailing, and includes fine leadlight art nouveau tracery to the postal hall windows. To the Burwood Road elevation there is a frieze of freestone which carries lettering formed in stone in relief. The lettering above the arched window reads ‘POST & TELEGRAPH OFFICE’ and that above the corner entry porch reads ‘TELEPHONE BUREAU’.

The Post Office function of the original 1908-09 building ceased in 1998, and the building was converted to house the Boroondara Community Health Centre. A large, three-level extension was added to the rear in 2013 for additional offices, physiotherapy rooms, and carparking.



In 1938 Hawthorn’s telephone exchange moved again, to a new building. This had been constructed to house automatic switching equipment and is located on the opposite side of Burwood Road (at No.375) and slightly further to the west of the former Hawthorn Post Office.

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Hawthorn Telephone Exchange building complex: Left, 1908-09 Post Office (Panoramio);

and Right, 1938 telephone exchange which also contains Telstra Museum (Google streetview)

The two-storey 1938 telephone exchange building was in 1959 extended to the north (towards Glenferrie railway station). In the early 1970s an adjoining new Modern automatic telephone exchange building with six storeys and a basement was built to the immediate north of the two-storey 1938 and 1959 buildings.



The Telstra Museum at the Hawthorn Post Office and telephone exchange building complex:

The 1938 automatic exchange building at 375 Burwood Road still contains telephone exchange functions and also houses Melbourne’s ‘Telstra Museum’. This Museum contains a large collection of historical telecommunications equipment and is managed by a group of dedicated volunteers. Highlights of the collection include displays of Morse equipment and telegraphy, telephones early to modern, public telephones, mobile telephones, interactive working electromechanical and digital telephone exchange equipment, original working Speaking Clocks, and operational manual switchboards.




1970s

1938

1959

1908 - 09

Hawthorn Telephone Exchange building complex, with construction dates (Google streetview)

The Collingwood Telephone Exchange does not display characteristics that warrant its inclusion on the VHR ahead of these other examples of groups of telephone exchange buildings.



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