Sites

Archive Import
History: Trevean is a typical Natal Verandah house built in 1882 for Captain Hitchings, a pioneer in Durban's shipping world. It is said to be the work of two wellknown Natal architects Robert Sellers Upton (Durban's first town surveyor and designer of St Paul's Church) and Philip Dudgeon. The detached billiard room at the rear of the main building bears the stamp of Dudgeon and was most probably built and designed by him. This section was added in 1898 and a superbly detailed interior. It has a steeply pitched roof ending in a small rectangular windowed cupola, which is in turn surmounted by a ventilation turret. The building itself is of red brick with pleasantly detailed entrance and elegantly upward soaring roof above the bay window.
Visual Description: U-shThe house is U—shaped with the legs of the U ending in fine, high, three sided bay windows. The whole house is surrounded by a verandah of cast iron making the house look far larger and more imposing than it actually is. The stoep is patterned in coloured encaustic tiles which provides colour to the shaded area and relieves the monotony of the large stoep surface. The verandah is supported on round cast iron standards with a simple ornamentation line below the eaves. All windows bear side mounted external louver shutters covering the whole window. Both shutters and hinges are original.
The main doorway is demarcated in the verandah by a small porch with a large boarded gable surmounted by a spiked ornament. Most woodwork on the front facade is original, although one or two doors have been replaced by modern replicas. The entire building is rusticated and where repairs have been effected the rustication has been carefully replaced. The roof is of corrugated iron and high, with. the ridge marked at the centre and above the bays by spiked ornaments. It divides into three distinct sections, a central 4—faceted section and two elongated sections joined by the centre section.
Internally, Trevean remains much as it was when first occupied, with high ceilinged rooms fitted with fireplaces by Carron of Birmingham and pressed steel ceilings in all main rooms. There is some original panelling in the main rooms which have been tastefully restored. -
Trevean is probably the best example of a late—Colonial Victorian building in Natal today and was declared a national monument on 31 July 1981."
Colours:
Site Features:
Condition: Fair
Construction Date: 1882
Materials:
Catalogue: , No: , Significance Category: