COMMERCIAL BUILDING, 3 CANTONMENT STREET

Statement of Significance

Commercial Building, 3 Cantonment Street, has some significance as a commercial building in the Fremantle town centre.

Physical Description

Two storey rendered building with Atwell Arcade (single storey shops) extending into 112-122 High Street (Mall) and a drive through entrance. The building has a decorative parapet with two pediments above slightly projecting portions of the building. The first floor façade has decorative timber framed and corrugated iron awnings over the windows. The ground floor has a veranda awning (probably not original) and recessed shop entrances.

History

Cantonment Street appears on Surveyor-General Roe’s earliest maps, and used to continue as Cantonment Road to Cantonment Hill, until this section was renamed as Queen Victoria Street in 1892 to avoid confusion.
A 1950 sewerage plan shows two residences at 5 and 7 Cantonment Street, one brick and one stone, with very large corrugated iron stables behind them across both lots. Next along the street is the Commercial Travellers Club, a large brick building with a verandah wrapping much of the front half, which is unnumbered but covers the equivalent of two or three residential lots. All these buildings would have been demolished to construct the large two-storey Commercial building, 3 Cantonment Street.
Wesley Church, located across the street, demolished a mission premises in Cantonment Street in the early 1970s, along with several shops in Market Street, and constructed the arcade and commercial complex that was initially known as ‘Wesley Way’. Photographs from c.1975, 1982 and 1996 show the commercial building with few changes, except for the businesses advertised in the awnings, all of which have changed. All three photographs show individual corrugated iron skillion awnings over each of the first floor windows. The 1982 photograph shows the place named as ‘Atwell Arcade’ in a semicircle advertising board extending above the ground floor canopy. The 1996 photograph, which is clearer, shows the entrance to the arcade recessed with adjacent shops having angled walls to emphasise the entry. The canopy advertisements note that this is an arcade, but the semicircle protruding above the canopy to mark the entrance in 1982 has been removed. Although the arcade entrance is not evident in the 1970 photograph, the angled front walls and display windows are visible, indicating the entrance was likely to be as seen in the 1996 image.

Condition

Fair.

Uses

Historic Themes

Creation Date

Publish place record online (inHerit):

Last Update

Disclaimer

This data is provided by the City of Fremantle. While every care is taken to ensure the accuracy of this data, the City of Fremantle makes no representations or warranties about its accuracy, reliability, completeness or suitability for any particular purpose and disclaims all responsibility and all liability (including without limitation, liability in negligence) for all expenses, losses, damages (including indirect or consequential damage) and costs which you might incur as a result of the data being inaccurate or incomplete in any way and for any reason. Under no circumstances should this data be used to carry out any work without first contacting the City of Fremantle for the appropriate confirmation and approval.