Historic Significance

Historical Significance or Value The Terrace Houses have historical significance. As noted above they are representative of one of the types of working class housing that developed in the nineteenth century. They are also an example of investment housing, built for rental accommodation and largely used as such for their first forty years, and now again largely rental housing for the student market.

Physical Significance

The Dundas Street Terrace Houses have architectural significance. They are a relatively rare example of terraced houses, which were not a common building type in New Zealand. They are representative of the architectural styling of working class housing in England, transferred to a colonial society. The urban crowding was not a quality that settlers wished to emulate, and terraced housing remained uncommon.

Detail Of Assessed Criteria

The Terrace Houses represent the development of nineteenth century working class housing in Dunedin, an important aspect of New Zealand history, and which in their history of ownership reveal a history of rental investment property, to individual ownership, and again in the current market as rental property. The property has an association with brothers James and Charles Allen, prominent members of nineteenth century Dunedin society. Together they owned the property for ten years, and James Allen or his family owned it until 1924 - a period of forty years, as part of a much larger estate. James Allen had substantial business interests in coal and gold mining, and was later a Minister of Defence as part of Massey's Reform ministry in the early twentieth century. The design of the Terrace Houses is interesting in its repetition of English terraced housing in a colonial context. The houses are recognised as an important and relatively rare example of this building type.

Cyclopedia of New Zealand, 1905

Cyclopedia Company, Industrial, descriptive, historical, biographical facts, figures, illustrations, Wellington, N.Z, 1897-1908, Vol. 4 Otago and Southland, Cyclopedia Company, Christchurch, 1905

Dictionary of New Zealand Biography

Dictionary of New Zealand Biography

Wises Post Office Directories

Wises Post Office Directories

Knight, H. & N. Wales, 1988

Hardwicke Knight and Niel Wales, Buildings of Dunedin: An Illustrated Architectural Guide to New Zealand's Victorian City, John McIndoe, Dunedin, 1988

Muthesius, 1982

S. Muthesius, The English terraced house, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1982

Shaw, 1997 (2003)

Peter Shaw, A History of New Zealand Architecture, Auckland, 1997

Porter, 1983

Frances Porter (ed), Historic Buildings of Dunedin, South Island, Methuen, Auckland, 1983.