A typical home in one of the older parts of Canberra

Abstract

View of a white house with tiled roof set in a garden with deciduous trees and an evergreen hedge. The house features a small front porch with an arch, a broad tapering chimney and a multi-paned window placed symmetrically below a roof apex. These design details indicate that it is a Federal Capital Commission Type 3 cottage. In 1926 the FCC published a booklet: Canberra; General Notes for the Information of Public Servants, which included a range of house designs from which newly arrived public servants could choose a home to buy or rent. The designs were prepared by the Commission's Chief Architect, Henry Rolland, with the help of John Murdoch and John Kirkpatrick. The trees on the nature strip appear to be silver birches (betula alba). This house was probably in Belmore Gardens in Barton because that was one of the very few streets in suburbs built in the 1920s which was planted with birches. A house of this type still exists in Belmore Gardens.This photograph is from an album that was held at the London office of the Australian National University over the period 1949 to 1952. The album was used to inform prospective staff about Canberra. These images are part of the series produced by the Department of Information and kept at the National Archives of Australia in Canberra. National Archives holdings in this series have gaps and some images may be held only at the ANU Archives.