West Brunswick Primary School circa 1900
The former Brunswick West Primary School building, dating from 1888 onwards, is architecturally significant as one of a group of twenty-five schools built to a characteristic and striking design (known as the "Horsham type") between 1877 and 1904. They were the first schools in Victoria to incorporate verandahs. Of this group, Brunswick West was the only one in Melbourne, the others being located in country areas.
Brunswick West also has a distinctive courtyard plan which is comparable to only two other schools, both in rural areas.
Brunswick West Primary School No 2890 opened to 210 students on 16th July 1888 with four substantial classrooms sited on the northern, Victoria St frontage. The school was constructed to serve the needs of the growing western parts of Brunswick and to accommodate the children of mining families from the nearby clay pits.
Within six months enrolment reached 505 students occasioning the construction in 1889 of two further classrooms to the south of the original building on the eastern side of the school. Continued rapid growth saw the addition of two matching classrooms on the west in 1891. The accommodation pressure was eventually eased by the development of the SS3585, Moonee Vale Primary School.
However, the numbers had risen to 900 by 1910 and four classrooms and an assembly hall, the Infants´ School, were constructed in that year. This development completed the enclosure of the courtyard.
A timber caretakers’ residence was built in Victoria St to the west of the school building adjacent to a laneway now named School Lane. In 1995 this residence was relocated to 46 Hunter St on the south west corner of the then school site. It has since been renovated in accordance with the heritage requirements of the Moreland City Council.
The school deteriorated to the extent that in 1939 articles appeared in the Age and the Argus under the heading "The Worst School in Victoria". In 1940 plans were commissioned for a major renovation and facelift for the building. It is likely that war intervened because the plans were not implemented until 1951.
The architect's drawing of West Brunswick Primary School as it existed around 1912
This architectural drawing of the south face of the building
shows that is has existed largely without significant alteration from 1912 until the present
The plans included a quite dramatic transformation of the building and the loss of its Victorian character. Features of the renovated building included removal of all verandahs including the internal courtyard verandahs, removal of fireplaces, modernisation of the roofline and windows, demolition of the northernmost original classroom and its replacement with a low, sleek office building, addition of concrete verandahs in the courtyard, rendering and painting of all brickwork and upgrade of all outbuildings.
The school reopened in 1951 as Brunswick Boys’ School catering for those unable to gain admission to High and Technical schools. However, by 1970 the school returned to its primary school status with an enrolment of 321 which gradually fell away through the 1970s and 1980s.
In 1990 the school was decommissioned and the then State Government negotiated with the then Brunswick City Council to use the site for a mix of public and private housing and community use. In 1992 the incoming Kennett Government did not pursue this arrangement and instead handed the site over to a private ethnic Greek Grammar School which only lasted for a few brief months before becoming insolvent.
In late 1993 the site was auctioned and purchased by WestWyck.
The recent history of the former Brunswick West Primary School is colourful and redolent of the politics of an era of economic rationalism in the state of Victoria in Australia in the latter years of the twentieth century.
The history is also a case study of the changing demographics of inner-city Melbourne. Brunswick's population fell from a high of more than 70,000 people in the mid 1970s to well under 40,000 people by 1990. Much of the inner city social and physical infrastructure was under threat as cash-strapped governments attempted to meet the needs of the sprawling outer suburbs. The inner suburbs were deemed to have been 'oversupplied'!
The Brunswick West Primary School closed down in the early 1990s as it simply ran out of students. The former Brunswick City Council negotiated successfully with the Victorian Government for a solution that involved a mix of public and private housing and a community facility.
These negotiations had proceeded quite positively and project plans were drawn up but the State Government changed hands and the incoming government passed the site over to a private school, Brunswick Grammar. This venture might well have added to the unique uses to which the building has been put but it did not endure. Brunswick Grammar collapsed. The Brunswick Grammar Principal moved on to work for the Premier and eventually become a Member of Parliament.
Following Brunswick Grammar's collapse the building was taken off the Register of the National Estate and the site was put up for auction late in 1993. The auction was chaotic. It was disrupted by protesters calling for funds from the sale of a local school to be returned to the education of Brunswick children, an objective strongly supported by the WestWyck consortium. Negotiations with the top bidders continued several days later and far away from the heat of Brunswick education protests.
A consortium of five people clubbed together to establish WestWyck as a company to buy and save the former Primary School building from demolition. The group was successful in buying the school and eventually its detached caretaker's cottage. 'WestWyck' is now a term that applies equally to the company, the school, the site and the environmental project taking place on the site.
The WestWyck team had saved the building and now needed to find a productive use for it!
There were half-hearted efforts to set WestWyck up as a performance venue and a conference facility. Some magnificent music and drama performances took place on the site up until 1997, and several community organisations used WestWyck to conduct conferences and planning days.
The harsh reality was that these activities barely paid for the cleaning of the facility and certainly did not provide any sort of return on the substantial investment. The partners were unable to provide the sort of capital input necessary to make these ventures succeed.
Through this period WestWyck's predominant use was as a shared or 'communal' housing complex. In spite of the Spartan conditions in winter it proved to be an extremely welcoming abode for dozens of long and short term stayers. The school population usually numbers around ten and while this is considerably lower than the school population of yesteryear, the new inhabitants have been able to do all manner of things not available to the previous inmates!
Mike Hill and Lorna Pitt have lived in the school now for nearly a decade. They have had an opportunity to try out several different classrooms for ambience. Others have lived there for up to five years and there is always a queue of people lined up in the event of a vacancy! Mike and Lorna are committed to communal living, and being part of a large commune within a school has been quite an experience. A strong communal ethic has grown up around WestWyck and the commitment to developing a co-housing project on the site gained momentum.
Mike and Lorna have both been local government Councillors and both shudder at the memory of some of the low quality development plans they have seen put before Councils for approval. They have been determined to do things differently at WestWyck and have set out to create a sustainable development of high quality. They are now the sole owners of WestWyck, having bought out their previous partners in 1998.
The building was re-listed on the Register of the National Estate in 1999 (Media Release).The WestWyck partners are committed to preserving this beautiful piece of West Brunswick’s history.
West Wyck is situated within a designated urban conservation zone (Area 18: Daly Street Heritage Area). The design treats the heritage and former life of the school building with dignity and flair that respectfully integrates the new housing with the historic school building.
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