Heritage significance and executive director recommendation to the

RECOMMENDATION REASONS

REASONS FOR NOT RECOMMENDING INCLUSION IN THE VICTORIAN HERITAGE REGISTER [s.34A(2)]

Following is the Executive Director's assessment of the place against the tests set out in The Victorian Heritage Register Criteria and Thresholds Guidelines (2014).

CRITERION A

Importance to the course, or pattern, of Victoria’s cultural history.

STEP 1: A BASIC TEST FOR SATISFYING CRITERION A

The place/object has a clear ASSOCIATION with an event, phase, period, process, function, movement, custom or way of life in Victoria’s cultural history.

Plus

The association of the place/object to the event, phase, etc IS EVIDENT in the physical fabric of the place/object and/or in documentary resources or oral history.

Plus

The EVENT, PHASE, etc is of HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE, having made a strong or influential contribution to Victoria.

Executive Director’s Response

The University of Melbourne System Garden has a clear association with the following processes in Victoria’s cultural history:

1. 
   the study and teaching of botany
   
2. 
   the design and development of the University of Melbourne.
   

These associations can be discerned to a limited extent in the System Garden’s remaining physical fabric and are comprehensively recorded in documentary resources.

These historical processes are of historical importance, having made a strong and influential contribution to Victoria.

Criterion A is likely to be satisfied.

STEP 2: A BASIC TEST FOR DETERMINING STATE LEVEL SIGNIFICANCE FOR CRITERION A

The place/object allows the clear association with the event, phase etc. of historical importance to be UNDERSTOOD BETTER THAN MOST OTHER PLACES OR OBJECTS IN VICTORIA WITH SUBSTANTIALLY THE SAME ASSOCIATION.

Executive Director’s Response

The study and teaching of Botany

The University of Melbourne System Garden is one of a number of places which have been associated with the study and teaching of botany in Victoria. These include the Royal Botanic Gardens (VHR H1459), Creswick School of Forestry (VHR H1511), and the Burnley Gardens (VHR H2052) and the Burnley Horticultural College.

The low-level intactness and integrity of the University of Melbourne System Garden’s extant heritage fabric do not allow its association with the study and teaching of Botany to be understood better than these other places. Since the 1920s, the encroachment of buildings into the System Garden has reduced it to about 40% of its original size. The original paths and planting beds no longer survive and all but the central tower of the conservatory has been demolished.

• 
  See ‘A note on Intactness and Integrity’ on page 3.
  
• 
  See ‘List of the features and elements that have been demolished, lost or removed’ on page 3.
  

The design and development of the University of Melbourne

The University of Melbourne System Garden is associated with the design and development of the University. However, the System Garden does not allow its association with this process to be understood better than most other places or objects in Victoria with substantially the same association. Many other buildings and features at the University of Melbourne Parkville campus are more intact, demonstrate greater integrity, and have a better capacity to demonstrate the design and development of the University.

Criterion A is not likely to be satisfied at the State level.

CRITERION B

Possession of uncommon, rare or endangered aspects of Victoria’s cultural history.

STEP 1: A BASIC TEST FOR SATISFYING CRITERION B

The place/object has a clear ASSOCIATION with an event, phase, period, process, function, movement, custom or way of life of importance in Victoria’s cultural history.

Plus

The association of the place/object to the event, phase, etc IS EVIDENT in the physical fabric of the place/object and/or in documentary resources or oral history.

Plus

The place/object is RARE OR UNCOMMON, being one of a small number of places/objects remaining that demonstrates the important event, phase etc.

OR

The place/object is RARE OR UNCOMMON, containing unusual features of note that were not widely replicated

OR

The existence of the class of place/object that demonstrates the important event, phase etc is ENDANGERED to the point of rarity due to threats and pressures on such places/objects.

Executive Director’s Response

The University of Melbourne System Garden has a clear association with the study and teaching of botany, and with the University of Melbourne’s design and development.

These associations can be discerned to a limited extent in the System Garden’s remaining physical fabric, and are comprehensively recorded in documentary resources.

The University of Melbourne System Garden is one of only three known extant system gardens in Victoria. Few system gardens were built in Victoria during the nineteenth century. The only two remaining are the remnants at the Ballarat School of Mines (1879) and at the University of Melbourne (1857-65). There is a System Garden at Monash University that was established in the 1970s.

1. 
   The University of Melbourne System Garden is not ‘rare or uncommon, being one of a small number of places/objects remaining that demonstrates the important event, phase etc’ in Victoria’s cultural history.
   

• 
  This place has a very limited capacity to demonstrate the history of the study and teaching of botany because of the significant loss of heritage fabric which makes this place a heritage system garden. The place currently functions and reads as a hybrid garden space consisting of a contemporary system garden which reflects a modern design, and an amenity (recreation) garden.
  
• 
  This is not a place that is rare on the grounds of being one of a small number of places which demonstrates the design and development of the University.
  
• 
  See ‘A note on Intactness and Integrity’ on page 3.
  

2. 
   The University of Melbourne System Garden is not ‘rare or uncommon, containing unusual features of note that were not widely replicated’.
   

• 
  This place has lost intactness and integrity to such a substantial degree that it no longer contains unusual features of note that were not widely replicated.
  
• 
  The original nineteenth-century system garden design and form are no longer evident. It no longer exhibits its striking former nineteenth century design of systematic beds in concentric circles radiating out from a central conservatory.
  
• 
  See ‘List of the features and elements that have been demolished, lost or removed’ on page 3.
  

3. 
   The existence of the class of place that demonstrates the important event, phase etc is endangered to the point of rarity due to threats and pressures on such places/objects.
   

• 
  The University of Melbourne System Garden belongs to the class of place ‘system gardens’.
  
• 
  The class is endangered and there are only three remaining in Victoria.
  
• 
  Despite the rarity of the heritage class, it is the view of the Executive Director that the University of Melbourne System Garden once was part of that class, but is no longer representative of that class of heritage through its loss of intactness and integrity.
  
• 
  See ‘A note on Intactness and Integrity’ on page 3.
  
• 
  See ‘List of the features and elements that have been demolished, lost or removed’ on page 3.
  

Criterion B is not likely to be satisfied.