Point Gellibrand Heritage Precinct (HO25)

Point Gellibrand is the foreshore at the eastern end of Williamstown, about 24 hectares bounded by Kanowna, Hanmer, Ann and Morris Streets, the Cyril Curtain Reserve to the south, and the coastline to the east. The Heritage Study describes it as the site of the first permanent European settlement in the Port Phillip district, and the first landfall and main disembarkation point in the colony until the 1850s.

Today it is mostly open parkland with low vegetation, basalt outcrops along the shore, and the naval dockyards and the Gellibrand and Breakwater Piers at its northern end. Much of the early fabric has gone, and the overlay protects what is left. Most people reading this will be visitors, neighbours, or members of a club or group that uses the land.

What applies here

Tree controls apply in full, not just to street trees. The schedule also marks HO25 as an Aboriginal heritage place, the only Hobsons Bay heritage precinct marked that way (more on that below). Paint controls don't apply, fences and outbuildings keep the usual exemption, internal alterations aren't controlled, and solar panels need a permit.

Why this precinct is protected

The citation's "What is significant?" line:

The Point Gellibrand Heritage Precinct, comprising approximately 24 hectares of foreshore land bounded by Kanowna Street, Hamner Street, Ann Street, Morris Street and the Cyril Curtain Reserve in the south, and the coastline to the east.

It finds the precinct of local historic, social and scientific (archaeological) significance to the City of Hobsons Bay. The historic and social case rests on Point Gellibrand's role in the maritime, transport and communications activity that early Williamstown and Victoria depended on. The citation's reasons:

• It was strategically important to the defence of the young colony.
• Fort Gellibrand was one of the first steps towards a defence system for the settlement.
• The Timeball Tower shows the point's role in protecting shipping, providing standard time signals, transmitting messages and charting the Bay.
• The dockyard served first as the State and then the Commonwealth Shipbuilding Yard. The citation calls the Alfred Graving Dock "the major single government work of its time in Victoria."
• Gellibrand, Breakwater and Nelson (Railway) Piers carried the export of wheat and wool, and the foundations of the unfinished wheat silos represent the collapse of that trade as far as Williamstown is concerned.
• The land corridor that once carried the lines from Williamstown station to Gellibrand Pier and the Time Ball Tower recalls the link between the railway and the port. The railway workshops here were the first in Victoria and served the whole State until they moved to Newport in 1889.
• Battery Road has strong associations with the Williamstown community through its use, formal and informal, as a public promenade for leisure and ceremony since the late nineteenth century.

Scientifically, the citation says Point Gellibrand's archaeological deposits have "significant educative and illustrative potential for demonstrating an important formative period in Victoria's settlement."

Much of what matters is in the ground

Most heritage precincts are about what you can see from the street. Here a large share of the significance is buried or fragmentary. The citation records that most of the physical evidence of the railway workshops and the pier station in the northern part has been removed, but that part-buried sleepers, lengths of track, bricks and building stone are scattered throughout. Remnants of early quarries can be seen in front of Fort Gellibrand; others elsewhere in the precinct have been filled. Near the fort the sea wall has been buried by landfill in places, and at the Shelley Beach end it is mostly hidden by sand and vegetation.

The schedule's "Aboriginal heritage place?" column is marked Yes for HO25. The schedule says no more than that, so ask council what it means for your proposal before you design. The 2006 citation is written about the period after European settlement and does not describe the Aboriginal heritage of the point, so its silence on the subject is not an answer.

The practical consequence: on Point Gellibrand, disturbing the ground is the act to plan around. Paths, footings, services, new planting and anything else that involves digging should be raised with council before the design is fixed.

Where HO25 runs

The schedule describes the precinct as: Point Gellibrand Foreshore Area, Williamstown.

The citation gives the boundaries as Kanowna Street, Hanmer Street (spelled "Hamner" in its statement of significance), Ann Street, Morris Street, the Cyril Curtain Reserve and the coastline. Two roads cross it: Railway Terrace, east-west through the centre, and Battery Road, which runs from the end of Nelson Place along the coast past the former fort before turning north to Morris Street. Its south-west section appears to follow the basic alignment of the original convict-built tramway.

The citation places the Williamstown Railway Station complex, between Hanmer Street and Railway Terrace, outside the precinct proper. Several of the bounding streets, and Railway Terrace, are also named in the schedule for the Government Survey precinct (HO8), so the land across the road may be under a different set of controls. Check the address for any specific site.

The rules that decide your application

Government Survey Heritage Precinct Heritage Design Guidelines 2020 applies here. It is an incorporated document, listed in the schedule to Clause 72.04, so it forms part of the planning scheme and council's planners assess applications against it. It is shared with HO8 and several other Williamstown precincts; the HO8 guide names it but doesn't summarise it.

The schedule also names an incorporated plan: Point Gellibrand Coastal Park Master Plan - Revised July 2003. The same plan is named in the schedule for HO8. No guide on this site summarises it. If you are proposing anything on the point, read it, or ask council how it bears on your proposal.

For a new building, the council's 2006 Guidelines for Infill Development in Heritage Areas in Hobsons Bay also apply.

Trees, views and the details

• Tree controls aren't limited to street trees.
• Fort Gellibrand includes earthworks, gun emplacements, a front magazine and numerous buildings, among them the Drill Hall with an attached residential wing. It is the only remaining physical evidence of the four battery positions at Point Gellibrand, and its batteries keep their "original commanding view over low level open space to the former target area in the Bay." That open ground is part of what the citation describes.
• The Timeball Tower was built in 1849 as the Point Gellibrand Lighthouse, replacing an earlier timber structure. From 1858 to 1926 a large copper ball was dropped from it at one o'clock each afternoon so ships could correct their chronometers.
• The sea wall runs from Breakwater Pier to the Recreation Ground. Construction next to the railway reserve is believed to have started in the 1850s and finished in the 1870s, with reconstruction in the 1960s and later. It mixes dressed and rock-faced bluestone with concrete capping, and some blocks appear to be recycled from buildings.
• The Recreation Reserve's cricket oval has a large reinforced concrete grandstand built in 1930.

What gets approved here

This section will carry the local permit record — application volumes, approval rates, what refused applications were attempting, and any VCAT decisions. That analysis is in progress and will be published with its method and limits stated.

What to do next

Ask council for pre-application advice. A free call with a planner, before anything is drawn — the most useful hour in the process.

Then check your address to confirm which precinct you are actually in. A Clarity Consultation is a focused session on your specific house; Confidence to Buy applies the same thinking before you bid.

Browse every Hobsons Bay heritage precinct.

Sources: control table and precinct extent transcribed from the Hobsons Bay Planning Scheme, Schedule to Clause 43.01 (C133hbay, gazetted 11/02/2026), read 27 October 2026. Significance from the Hobsons Bay Heritage Study 2006 citation for the Point Gellibrand Heritage Precinct (Victorian Heritage Database place 22455). Infill objectives from the Guidelines for Infill Development in Heritage Areas in Hobsons Bay (2006). This is a plain-English summary written by a registered architect. It is not planning advice and the planning scheme governs.