2 High st. DALGETY'S BOND STORE

Built in 1902 as Dalgety's Bond and Free Stores, 2 High St

1889 A man named William Carney was charged at the Albany Police-court on the 22nd inst. by the local collector of Customs with having on the previous day illegally unshipped from the R.M.S. Arcadia 161bs. of tobacco, without payment of duty. The case was proved and the defendant was ordered to pay £5 8s. (thrice the value of the tobacco) and also to pay 11s. 6d. costs, in addition to the smuggled tobacco being forfeited. (reference)

1900 The Orient Cafe: Late Chief Steward of S.S. Bullarra, begs to Notify the public that he has purchased the business of the Orient Cafe (No. 2), High-street, Fremantle, and solicits the continuance of your patronage. Cold Luncheons and Salads, Oyster Suppers, Ice Cream, Strawberries, and Passion Fruit, and Cream to be had Fresh Daily. Private Rooms for Ladies. Afternoon Tea a Speciality. (reference)  

13 Feb 1901 AUCTION Sale- Furniture, Mirrors, Ice chest etc. Orient Cafe, No. 2 High-st., Fremantle. G C. Waghorn has received instructions from M. Todd to Sell a quantity of Furniture, Glassware, Shopfittings etc., comprising A.B. chairs, Gipsy tables, ice chest (new), squash chest (new), 2 mirrors, marble-top counter, glass jars, ham, ice machines, scales and weights, patent till, cigarettes, cigars, 600 g.i. tank (new), saucepans, curtains, linoleum, confectionery, glassware, and a host of sundries. (reference)

1902 Article about Dalgety’s new buildings in Fremantle- the warehouse, which has frontages to the railway, High-street, and to Philimore-street, has some 30,000ft. of floor space. The building was designed by and carried out under the supervision of Mr. J. Talbot Hobbs, F.R.I.V.A., of Perth and Fremantle. It is seldom an architect gets a commission to spend on one plot £30,000. This is the largest contract let (privately) in this State for a building, and the result seems to have given the greatest satisfaction to all concerned. The contractor for the building is Mr. W. H. Vincent, and the cost is nearly £30,000. (reference)

1917 Messrs. Dalgety & Co., report having held their usual weekly sale of hides, tallow etc, at the Wool and Produce Exchange, Dalgety's Buildings, Cliff-street, Fremantle, Friday, 9th February; Kangaroo Skins-This market is exceptionally keen, probably owing to the limited number of skins arriving… Kangaroo Skins: Greys- over 2|lb weight Is 5d2s, Reds- | lb weight and over 3s to 3s 6d, joeys to 2s per dozen, Euros- Is 6d to 2s 3d. Coast Wallaby to 2s per dozen. (reference)

1927 The building acquired by Elder, Smith and Co, Ltd is regarded as one of the finest in Fremantle. It occupies all the land between Phillimore street, Cliff street, High street with the exception of the portion used by the Union Bank and contains about 60 offices on two floors, and two-storey stores with a basement which measures 60ft by 200ft.  (reference)

OCCUPANTS

Lot 1 & 2a owners: 1855 - 1859 Government, 1876 - 1879 Shenton, G

1897 Carney, William

1898 Marshall, Hugh

1899 Henderson, Peter

1900 Johnson, Peter & Hume, John

1901 Johnson, Peter

1902 - 1938 Dalgety's Bond & Free Stores- had a long lease and continued to occupy the building (reference)

1938 - 1949 Elder Smith & Co Ltd (stores)

2000- redevelopment by Architect Ralph Hoare. Currently residential flats/apartment block and commercial shop.

FORMER DALGETY'S BOND STORE.JPG

Fremantle Municipal Tramways Car Barn (fmr)

The old Fremantle Police Quarters (at least from 1881) were demolished c 1901 to make way for the Fremantle Municipal Tramways car barn and Electric Lighting Board Depot, erected in 1905 as the Fremantle tramway system developed. The car barn was designed for the Fremantle Municipal Tramways and Electric Lighting Board by J.Herbert Eales and built by Abbot and Rennie.

In 1911 the Fremantle Municipal Tramways and Electric Lighting Board became owners of all of Lot 6 (part of which they had already acquired in 1906).

For a history of the Tramways read this article from 1925 which gives an overview of the first 20 years (reference)

In 1952, the tramways closed and the building was sold to Elder Smith & Co for a wool store.

In 1966 it was sold to Lionel Samson & Son Pty. Ltd. and used as a dispatch centre for their wholesale liquor business. In 1885 the building was sold and redeveloped as apartments.

The original building had a two storey section facing High Street and a one storey car barn behind for the trams. Only the facade now remains. The original barn contained five tracks, one of which was used for cleaning.

From 2002 it has held Chalkey’s cafe on ground floor corner.

OCCUPANTS

Lot 6 owners: 1829 - 1837 Wood & Okeley, 1855 - 1879 Helpman, F

1896 Fremantle Police Quarters demolished for the Tramways carbarn built 1905

1899 - 1900 Jackson, William H

1901 Hume, John

1902 Petersen, Hans

1906 - 1952 Fremantle Municipal Tramsways & Electric / Lighting Board (office)

(1906 - 1926 Albert Mitchell, manager), (1927 - 1929 J T Bold, sec and J Ridgway, engineer)

Upstairs:

1930 - 1935 Laurie and Co Ltd, Robt, stevedores

1941 - 1945 Navy & Army Canteen

1952 Elder Smith & Co

1966 Lionel Samson & Son Pty. Ltd

Fremantle Municipal Tramways Car Barn (fmr).JPG

25 High Street

P&O Hotel- Corner 25 High St and 20 Mouat St

Architecture- The P&O Hotel is a highly decorative and prominent two storey hotel; built in the boom of the gold period. The main entrance is on the corner of High and Mouat Streetss. The decorative parapet has balustrade, columns and five large pediments featuring stilted arches with columns and decorative stucco. The building originally had a clock tower and the corner of the parapet has the remains of a dome featuring the name The 'P&O Hotel' in decorative stucco.

History
The first building on this corner was a small hotel owned by the Pace family. This became the Victoria Hotel (c1870), a small hotel which stood on the site of the current P&O Hotel. Mrts Scott and Pat Hagan took over the Victoria Hotel in 1871. The bar was known as the 'Cockpit' and fitted out in nautical style.

1873 … Peter Docherty was charged with stealing Is. 6d., a tobacco pipe, and a piece of tobacco, from the person of Mr. Michael O'Grady, at Fremantle on the ll th February last. It appears that Mr. O'Grady went into the Victoria Hotel, Fremantle on the day in question, and laid down on a sofa in the parlour to enjoy his afternoon's siesta. The prisoner, who happened to be in the same room, observing him asleep, rifled his pockets, and was caught in flagrante delicie by Mr. Hagan, the landlord. The jury found him guilty, and he was sentenced to 3 years penal servitude.. (reference)

1877 Of the death of Mrs. Patrick Hagan, of the Victoria Hotel… Her many acts of unostentatious charity and true benevolence, her kind, motherly counsel, will indeed remain green in our memories… the deepest sympathy is felt for Mr. Hagan in his deep affliction, bereft thus early of his cheerful and beloved partner in life. The funeral, which took place yesterday afternoon, was probably the largest ever seen in the Port. All the vessels in harbor hoisted their flags half-mast as a mark of respect for the deceased. (reference)

New owners from c 1893 were Bernard O’Connor & Timothy Quinlan.

1893 Fremantle Municipal Council- A complaint of excessive rating by Mr. T. F. Quinlan, with regard to the Victoria Hotel premises was referred to the rating committee. (reference)

The Victoria Hotel was rebuilt by Cavanagh & Cavanagh c.1896 and the name changed to the P&O Hotel- it opened 1 July 1901.

The Bahen family owned the P&O from c 1932-1972. In 1938 architect Frank Rennie carried out alterations to the interior. Its verandas, removed in the 1960s, were reinstated in 2002. In 1972 outbuildings on the site were demolished.
New owners in 1985 carried out renovations, including in 1986, removal of three shopfronts on the ground floor (not original) and formation of a new entrance. In 1994, Revitalized Shopfitters carried out a refit of the interior.

1996: I lived for several months in the P&O Hotel in 1996.

The bedrooms were upstairs, the rent was fairly cheap and the room I stayed in was, thankfully, not a street side room. This meant that the hustle and bustle of Freo’s west end nightlife didn’t stop me from getting sleep. My room was small and sparse with a bed and wardrobe, a window and a door. Back then there was no wide, covered balcony like the hotel now has, instead the street side rooms had small individual balconies. Most of the street side rooms were large, had high ceilings and were well lit due to the windowed doors that opened up to their little balconies. Most of those on the High Street side used bed sheets to cover their windows due to the Sun’s propensity to heat up their rooms. 

Next to my room was a communal kitchen and down the hall was a communal laundry and bathroom. At the corner of the west end of the hotel, upstairs, was a large room that was known as the Captain’s Room, but was being used by the Caretaker. That room was very spacious and had its own beautiful bar and fireplace. Directly downstairs from the caretaker’s room was the main bar, a large room that I have many fond memories of. Towards the back was the Manager’s Room. The stairs connecting upstairs directly to the street were located on the Mouat Street side of the building and were the resident’s after hours entry. Those days the West End of Freo had a large number of hotels and customers that enjoyed them. It wasn’t unusual to do the “west end pub crawl” and meet up with blokes you’d seen at another pub an hour beforehand.  Beside the bar, on the north eastern end of the building was a restaurant- there was always the aromatic smell of good food wafting up. 

I met some characters living in that hotel; the neighbour who lived directly across from me had been living there awhile with his girlfriend. I recall she worked as a skimpy barmaid in Kalgoorlie. Another bloke was a barman at the P&O, who after a night off in Freo with his mates was not only nursing a nasty hangover, but also sporting two broken ankles after he’d decided to drunkenly jump off the wall beside South Fremantle Football oval on Parry Street. Having 2 broken ankles, hobbling around on crutches, being a barman AND living upstairs is a bad combination for anyone. During my time at the hotel I saw, and met, quite a few people from interstate just dropping in for a quick visit, some international backpackers enjoying their stay, a biker and his partner and even blokes who’d been there for years. I’ve lived in a few pubs since then, but none had quite the character that the P&O had back then. Dave Dowley 2021

Occupants

Lot 45 and 46 were originally owned by Walter Pace (1829-1837), transferred to Ann Pace (1856-1876), then Scott & Patrick Hagan (1877-)

1898 Victoria Hotel -Bernard O’Connor & Timothy Quinlan

1897 - 1972 P & O HOTEL

(1897 - 1912 —)

1913 - 1914 Andrew Elliott licensee

1915 Paul Reichardt licensee

1916 - 1917 R E Hummerston licensee

1918 Edgar H Fielder licensee

1919 - 1920 R C McCutcheon licensee

1921 - 1922 J V Dolin licensee

1923 Maurice Gunzburg licensee

1924 - 1926 William James Munro licensee

1927 - 1932 W. Malone, licensee

1933 - 1935 Edward Wachman, licensee

1936 - 1972 Clem Bahen, licensee

c.2002-2021 it was leased by Notre Dame University (ND5) and used for student accommodation. Notre Dame no longer uses the building.

16 High Street, National Bank

ND19.

16 High Street (pre 1938 was 28 High Street) Commercial Building, Former APT Shipping Building, National Bank

This substantial Federation period commercial building was built in 1897 by Richard Rennie for the National Bank of Australasia. Three years later, accommodation was added for a Manager.

The National Bank then leased the building to a variety of shipping agents, architects and to the Commercial Bank of Australia. This pattern of leasing and reoccupation by the bank continued until the premises were sold in 1952. In the latter part of 1937, The Four Square Gospel Mission moved in and ran the establishment as its Temple for the next two years. See our story on its leader- Frederick Van Eyk under the Notable People section.

The building was used by a shipping agencies and import merchants until 1980. See the story of Shipping clerk Jillian Santich, who worked in the building for APT Shipping from 1973 until c.1980.

It was purchased by Leeuwin Estate and turned into a residence until the Catholic Education Office purchased it in the 1980s. It has been leased by the University since 1997 and used as the College of Theology, the College of Education and the International Centre (2001).

It is now used by the Museum of Perth.

Occupants

Lot 29 & 30 owners: 1829 - 1859 Bannister, T, 1876 - 1878 Habgood, R

1897 - 1934 NATIONAL BANK OF AUSTRALASASIA LIMITED

(1897 - 1898: Angus McDonald, manager), (1899 - 1910: P P King, manager), (1911 - 1913: R Cotton, manager), (1914 - 1919: John Anderson, manager), (1920 - 1930: F A Langley, manager), (1931 - 1934: F J S Thompson, manager)

1934 - 1938 vacant

1938 - 1940 Four Square Gospel Mission

1940 - 1941 vacant

1941 - 1946 Commonwealth Veterinary Officer

1947 (Front) Unoccupied

1947 - 1949

16a (Rear) Simpson Gordon M

16a (Rear) Warner Gus

1949 Perpetual Executors Trustees & Agency Co (W A) Ltd, trustees

1970s - 1980 APT Shipping Company

2000’s Notre Dame building ND 19

After 16 High st.png