Cricklewood

Melbourne, Australia

Cricklewood house was originally a farm in the late 1800's. The local gentry “Squire of Cricklewood” whose name was Wagstaff owned the farm in late 1880-1890. He commissioned a silo, to house all the local grain. It serviced all the farms until about 1910 when he commissioned a local architect to repurpose the silo to be a farmhouse. It was in the local paper and was known to be the first architectural repurposed construction of its time.

The silo follows a basic Californian bungalow style and the interior has craftsmen style timber box beams held by corbels. The windows and doors are solid red cedar and were constructed to fit the round facade of the silo.

The stucco is original and the stones were sourced from the property. It’s a simple construction but totally unique and still in its original form. The main silo has no changes made to it.

Our client decided to extend onto the house and integrated the silo into the new design and roof. They added a weatherboard cladding and have kept the rough external stucco technique to match the original silo. The internal plaster was removed off the fire place wall in the new kitchen to expose the original red brick. The house is also a heritage site.