Have questions about heritage or need assistance?

If you are thinking about renovating/restoring your property then contact our City Strategy and Development team for free heritage advice.

To book an appointment with the Heritage Advisor, please call us on (03) 5559 4800.

Heritage places in the City of Warrnambool are highly valued by both Council and the community for providing a link to the past and for enriching the present environment.

Warrnambool has a unique heritage with a rich diversity types and styles of place, represented in building stock (residential, pastoral, industrial and commercial) and landscape from almost all eras since European settlement in the area.

In recognition of this, the Warrnambool Heritage Gap Study (3a – Precincts) identified 26 heritage areas (referred to as Heritage Precincts) within the City of Warrnambool. A number of individual places are also recognised as being significant in their own right.

Heritage Guidelines

Heritage Precincts

Heritage Precincts are areas which represent a period or pattern of development. They consist of a mix of places which may have different building styles and of buildings and gardens that contribute to the precinct (development/change to protect and compliment significance).

Reflecting that Warrnambool is a regional city that has developed over time, a majority of the precincts represent building stock from the 1860s through to the 1970s. Some heritage precincts demonstrate a more specialised range of styles and types of buildings, such as the Modern in Verdon Street; the Californian Bungalows of Cockman Street and Ellerslie Grove or the very unique Housing Commission Development at Ocean and Wattle Groves.

The commercial areas of the Fairy Street Precinct and the Commercial Precinct have a broad range of building styles from a range of periods, but are specifically commercial structures. Woodford, a small village settlement with a distinctive nineteenth century character, including its building stock, landscape, subdivision pattern and sense of place has also been included as a heritage precinct.