This month’s blog posts will look at places on the Avoca Walking Tour, a brochure published by the Pyrenees Tourism Association. An online transcription is available here.
13.: Watford House, 1850s. Watford House is a rare surviving example of a prefabricated house imported into Victoria reflecting the wealth of Avoca’s goldrush era. It was imported by C.K. Pearson the proprietor of the Avoca Hotel. Each piece of timber was numbered so it could be re-erected with ease.
Watford Cottage is believed to have been imported by German born hardware merchant and importer Frederick Bauer. Bauer imported over twenty four pre-fabricated houses from Hamburg, between January 1854 and June 1855.
The house was first erected by C. K. Pearson as the accommodation wing of the Avoca Hotel in 1856.
In 1852 Pearson arrived in Geelong with his brother and operated a soda water factory. Pearson’s sister Ann married Frederick Bauer in 1854 in Geelong. She is believed to have imported two prefabricated houses.
By 1855 Pearson moved to Avoca where he operated the Avoca Hotel. He bought the site that the house was first located on in March 1856 in the town’s first land sales. Pearson operated the hotel until the 1860s and then operated as a watchmaker while leasing the hotel.
In 1870, the house next to the Avoca Hotel was sold by James B. Smith, then publican.
It was bought by Mr Bulhert, an Avoca storekeeper, and it was moved on red gum rollers down to its present site in Dundas Street near the river.
The house was subsequently bought by John Paten, the proprietor of the Avoca Mail. It was during Paten’s ownership that the place became known as ‘Watford’ after the place in Hertfordshire where his father had been living.
After John Paten’s death in 1898 the ownership of the house passed his son Arthur who owned it until 1946. From 1946 to 1970 the house was owned by Arthur Paten’s sister-in-law Mrs Margery Reid.
It was bought by Noel Tunks in 1971.
Artist Lyndal Jones bought the house in 2004 and restored it. From 2008 to 2019 the not-for-profit organisation The Avoca Project used the house for cultural activities including exhibitions and performances. The house was sold in 2020.
Substantial numbers of prefabricated house were imported into Australia during the nineteenth century. The majority of these were from Britain but a small proportion came from Germany. Watford is one of three German prefabricated houses known to exist in Victoria, all of which are believed to have been imported by Bauer. In 2009 Watford was assessed as being the most intact of these.
Sources and further reading
Watford Cottage. (2009). Victorian Heritage Database. Retrieved January 25, 2026, from https://vhd.heritagecouncil.vic.gov.au/places/1525 and report https://vhd.heritagecouncil.vic.gov.au/places/1525/download-report
Jones, L. (n.d.). History/provenance | Swiss House. The Avoca Project. Retrieved January 25, 2026, from https://www.theavocaproject.com/history-avoca-project
- Pyrenees Shire Heritage Precinct Study Volume 2(PDF, 8MB)
- A22 16 Dundas Street p 120
- Avoca Heritage Study 1864-1994 Volume 3(PDF, 10MB)
- A22 Tunk’s House Dundas Street
Wikitree:
- Charles Kelvey Pearson (1827-1909)
- Ann Rebekah (Pearson) Bauer (1830-1924)
- Friedrich Georg Bauer (1824-1890)
- James Barber Smith (abt.1831-1881)
- William Ernest Buhlert (1834-1883)
- John Ferrara Ginto Paten (1832-1898)
- Arthur Ferrara Forward Paten (1866-1936)
- Marjery (Brown) Reid (1885-1976)
- Noel James Tunks (1943-2008)
