Wilberforce Police Station

Reference: Local Government Database Number: 1740088

Significance: The former Wilberforce Police Station has high local significance as a fine example of a Victorian Regency building featuring decorative rendered panels and frieze within face brick walls.

Description: The former Wilberforce police Station is a fine Victorian Regency style building. Single storey, it has a hipped roof with rendered chimneys and a verandah on the west (Wilberforce Road) side. The verandah has a skillion roof, hipped at the ends.

The house is built of brick in a colonial bond with a sandstone plinth. At the top of the walls is a rendered frieze with decorative eaves brackets. On the front of the building, in the frieze, are the words “POLICE STATION VR 1883”. The roof is of corrugated steel and the verandah roof has lead rolls to the hips.

Double hung windows flanking the front door have rendered panels below. The front door is 4 panelled with a toplight.

The verandah is supported on paired stop chamfered posts with timber brackets. The verandah is flagged with sandstone with a bullnose edge.

Reference: Information dated 20 March 1980

The old Wilberforce Police Station was built in 1883 originally occupying a site of 1 acre 2 roods and 4 perches. The station contained quarters for the the resident constable and his family, 2 cells for prisoners and a grilled exercise yard. A slab stable containing two stalls and a forage room also stood on the site. Repairs and renovations were carried out to the buildings in 1908 at a cost of £53/8/0 and the station continued to operate until closure in 1933. The station lay disused until being sold by the Department in the late 1970s.

A police presence was established in Wilberforce at a much earlier date to that of the building of the police station in 1883. For example, in 1827 John Cobcroft was appointed District Constable for Wilberforce.

Reference: Colonial Secretary`s Correspondence

Estimates for the repair of the Police Lock-up at Wilberforce dated April 1857 noted that the building measured 26 feet by 10 feet 10 inches. Materials needed for repair included flooring, roofing shingles, chimney mortar, fencing and sleepers (for walls) added to labour and nails etc amounted to £94-15-0.