Woodsons, 13 Cantonment Street

Statement of Significance

Woodsons, 13 Cantonment Street is an example of a warehouse in the Inter War Functionalist style. The place has historic significance for links with the Fremantle Port.

The use of limestone is part of the Fremantle landscape and gives the City coherence and character. Limestone walls were built around properties in Fremantle to prevent sand drift in response to an early building regulation dating from the 1830s. Limestone walls are one commonly encountered example of use of this stone as a building material, most of them dating from the 19th century and early years of the 20th century. Most of the limestone in small walls came from local quarries.

Physical Description

Woodsons, 13 Cantonment Street is a three level brick and rendered and parapeted roof building which has multi-paned tilt windows.

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.

The firm G.Wood and Son purchased lot 326 Cantonment Street in 1898. Cost of building was £8,250. By 1900 a full page advertisement appeared in the W.A. Postal Directory showing the new building with the name "G. Wood, Son and Co." surmounting the top storey and beneath it, above the ground floor "Wholesale Grocers and Importers". Also in the scene were three senior staff members and a horse drawn lorry piled with cartons and boxes, plus a pushbike on the footpath. The building was gutted by fire in 1915 and in 1922 and rebuilt each time.

While the premises were being rebuilt following the 26 March 1922 fire which was lit by an arsonist, the company moved to a warehouse owned by Dalgety and Company at the West end of High Street.

Parry's Department Store purchased the property in 1975. The building housed the firm and activities (despite interruptions by the disastrous fires in 1915 and 1922) until 1966 when the business was transferred to new premises at the corner of Carrington and Clarke Streets. See: "Anchor in the West" by J. Lee and A.W. Barrett (p664).

This place was identified in the "Heritage Report on 19th century limestone walls and steps in Fremantle" prepared by Silvana Grassadonia, for the City of Fremantle, 1986.

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