Suburban delights

My home city of Adelaide is, at its best, a fairly genteel city once renowned as Australia's "city of churches" for the large number of churches to be found here. Of course, many of these have been sold and some remodeled as homes, but one thing that has not changed in some inner suburbs is the number of quite stately homes from the late Victorian and Edwardian eras with their distinctive quasi-British architecture. (Also, in some suburbs, California bungalows - yes, we have them too and they are another distinctive style though less common in the suburb pictured here as this suburb was settled before they became popular in the 1920's). The suburb depicted here - a neighbouring suburb to mine - is "Malvern" one of these serene and stately, upmarket, if not precisely "grand" inner suburbs that were in their day, and are now, an area where many of the professional class (Doctors, Lawyers, Accountants, Senior Managers etc.) lived or aspired to live. It's that kind of place. I imagine it was as desirable then as it demonstrably is now.

My suburb (nearby to this) is, sadly not anywhere near so well heeled, but it's still far from being a dump - just a little more down to earth, and incidentally, with more than a few of those California bungalows I mentioned above as it was settled a decade or two later. Many of the homes similar to those depicted here will have been substantially updated and renovated, in keeping with modern trends, the updates typically including a large family living area, gourmet kitchen and extra bathrooms, bedrooms and garaging space - and maybe a study. Quite often they also include a swimming pool as the land size is generous enough for this. More than one even has a tennis court. But these amenities are seldom visible from the street which mostly only shows the historical aspect of the homes (there are heritage laws in this area which require the preservation of building facades so the look and feel of these streets' history is not lost.) Probably a good thing in suburbs like this where history is money and this reflects in the value of the land and buildings.

I often walk thru this and a few other similar nearby neighbouring suburbs with similarly styled homes (some much larger and grander still) and as someone who has always been interested in architecture it's always a joy just to walk these quiet streets where most times there is little traffic and few people to be seen during the working week where I can see "how the other half live".

For me this specific suburb used to be on my path to the bus stop where I caught the bus to my office when I was grafting 5 days a week behind a city desk. It almost made going to work a pleasure.........................almost.

P.S. " 'tog" note.................these were shot with a Canon Serenar 50mm f1.8 at f8. As can be seen it is no "slouch"!

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