Parts of Canberra’s oldest shopping precinct, dubbed the “early Kingston Shops”, has been ear-marked for heritage listing.
Built in the 1920s, the area was, along with Manuka shops, the first shopping precinct for the new capital.
It was the first time Canberrans were able to purchase goods and services without needing to travel further afield.
While the area today does look a little different, there are elements of those original shops which remain.
Shopping precinct will turn 100 next year
Chair of the ACT Heritage Council Duncan Marshall described the area as Canberra’s “premier shopping destination” between the 1920s and the late 1950s.
“They were essential for goods and services, but they were also a centre for socialising and employment,” he said.
“The early Kingston shops were really the start of that process where people didn’t have to travel outside of the territory [to Queanbeyan] or they didn’t have to wait for the bread cart or the milk cart to arrive, they could go to shops and they could buy things.”
Among those early shops to spring up was Canberra’s first department store, Young’s, and an electrical store called AJ Ryan’s which was where early radio in Canberra began.
There was also a bakery, a butchers and a chemist, and “the usual sorts of things you would find in an early shopping precinct”, Mr Marshall explained.
Heritage listing a ‘recognition of value’
The section of Kingston’s shopping precinct that has been provisionally listed is made up of a row of small, mostly single-storey shops along Giles and Kennedy Streets.
The heritage council had received three different nominations for heritage listing larger parts of the shopping precinct, but had decided to move ahead just those that sit within the L-shaped section of buildings along those streets.
The council said that was because that area had the most significant impact on the development of the ACT, as it was built quickly and with little government control.
While most of the shop frontages have changed in the last century, Mr Marshall said elements of the buildings, like the parapets, were original.
He said the general form of many of the buildings, with there being a shopfront and a verandah or awning, remained the same as they had always been.
Heritage listing won’t turn ‘shops into museums’
Provisional registration is the first public step towards recognising places of heritage value in the ACT.
But Mr Marshall said it wouldn’t prevent further change from happening in the area.
“We recognise that the shops need to continue to live, to thrive [and] to have ongoing commercial operations, as they have for the last nearly 100 years,” he said.
“And that can also involve a degree of change.
“The heritage council is very much interested in seeing the ongoing sympathetic use of these shops.”
He said major redevelopment in the area was already restricted and the heritage listing would further stop that from happening.
But overall he wanted to see the buildings continue to be used.
“I just wanted to stress that heritage registration does not freeze places, you know, we’re not turning these shops into museums. They need to continue in use,” Mr Marshall said.
Historic street frontages to be respected
The announcement was welcomed by the Kingston-Barton Residents’ Group which has long been calling for parts of the precinct to be heritage-listed.
President Richard Johnston said they would have liked to have seen “the whole centre” listed, but welcomed the move nonetheless.
“We’re very pleased,” he said.
“We recognise this is the oldest and the original part of the centre … the frontages on Giles and Kennedy Streets.”
Mr Johnston said it was a fitting recognition for the importance of the shops in Canberra’s history.
He agreed the listing shouldn’t spell the end for business owners being able to modify their premises, but hoped the overall character would be retained in the future.
“The fabric of the individual buildings is not the critical thing here, it’s the scale of development, the street frontages and the way the buildings address the street,” he explained.
“From our point of view, it’s the pavings, the landscaping … the whole package along those street frontages that needs to be respected.”
Mr Johnston said he would like to see the council list additional parts of Kingston Shops on the heritage register in the future.
The council’s decision is open for public comment until July 1, and the council will also consult with the owners of the shops during that time.