Activ Foundation Workshop

Parent Place or Precinct

22111 LIMESTONE FEATURE(S), 96-100 STIRLING HIGHWAY

Statement of Significance

Refer to HCWA Register of Heritage Places - Assessment Documentation: Activ Foundation Workshop (Former North Fremantle Infants School) Activ Foundation Workshop, comprising the former North Fremantle Infants’ School, a single-storey stone and iron building built in 1900, and the former Army Workshop, a single-storey brick, stone and asbestos building built in 1942, has cultural heritage significance for the following reasons: the place is important for its role in education in the district, for its use during World War Two by the Australian and US armed forces, and for its later associations with technical education and the Activ Foundation's work with intellectually disabled persons; the Workshop is an unusual building, particularly for the style and construction techniques of the street facade and interior detailing. The Workshop was built by apprentices and records part of the educational technique of the period; the place was occupied by the United States Navy during World War Two, and was known as the U.S.N. Public Works Office; and, the two buildings, located on a curve in Stirling Highway directly opposite the North Fremantle Railway Station, contribute to the streetscape. The internal stud dividing wall in the former hall, the landscaping, the paving, the toilet block, the loading bay and the pergolas and shelters are of little heritage significance. The metal sheds, the paving and the internal stud walls in the Workshop are considered intrusive.

Physical Description

Refer to HCWA Register of Heritage Places - Assessment Documentation: Activ Foundation Workshop (Former North Fremantle Infants School) The site is on the east side of Stirling Highway and faces the North Fremantle Railway Station to the west. To the east is a group of recent Homeswest medium density houses. To the north and south are buildings with predominantly mixed commercial uses. There are no contemporary buildings in the immediate vicinity. The former North Fremantle Primary School is about 100 metres to the south on the other side of Stirling Highway. There is no precinct involved. RELATIONSHIPS ON SITE: The following structures are currently located on the site: • The former Infants’ School, a stone and corrugated iron building of 250 square metres built in 1900. • A small wood shed on the northern boundary completed in 1901. • A drinking trough immediately east of the classroom gable. (undated) • The Workshop (fmr Military Workshop) of 150 square metres built in 1942 in brick, stone and asbestos roof. • A limestone retaining wall and bituminised ramp to the rear of the site. • A male and female toilet block central to the rear of the site. • Shed structures to the east of the former Infants’ School. • The remains of a garden centre to the north-east corner of the site, 1980s. • A modern steel shed of 170 square metres, c1993, to the east of the Workshop. • A domestic steel shed, 1997, to the south of the Workshop. There is very little in the way of existing landscaping. The grounds are in a functional but Spartan state. More than half the site is bituminised. The raised rear section to the south east of the site is partially grassed and planted. There is a Eucalyptus ficafolia to the west of the toilet block, which is large enough to be about 25 years old. There is a hedge to the street alignment a little older (There is little evidence of detailed landscaping in a 1968 aerial photograph. The E.ficafolia is not to be seen, but the hedge is evident.) EXTERNAL FORM AND STYLE OF THE BUILDINGS: The former Infants’ School was built to a modified standard plan signed by PWD Architect Hillson Beasley. The twin gable roof is clad in corrugated iron, has lined eaves overhangs of about 600mm on all sides and a box gutter between. There is a sectioned triangular roof vent to each gable. The exterior walls are rock-faced limestone in random stone size with a minimum dimension of approximately 120mm and a maximum of about 600mm. A 100mm high painted rendered strip runs around the building 170mm below floor level. Windowsills in the lean-to sections are rendered with sloping tops that run 150mm to each side of the openings. The west and east elevations of the classroom gables have blind windows with small toplights and the south elevation has combination double hung/toplight sashes. A rendered strip runs at sill level around full height walls (without lean-to rooms). The form is typical of turn of the century school buildings, but most similar examples are in brick rather than stone. The west elevation presents awkwardly to the street, the lean-to verandah and office giving the appearance of a rear elevation. The stone walls of the lean-to entry porch, breaks the scale of the larger spaces within the building and diminishes the visual clarity of the street elevation. The rear elevation has no lean-to sections. The Former Infant's School has had problems with leaking walls and damp since it was built. Despite numerous calls for changes, no modifications were carried out to eliminate the cause of the problems, namely, the porous stone walls. The external stone walls are in an extremely exposed location and wind and rain damage is widespread. A fundamental problem exists with the type of stone and the exposed location. Recent repairs to the stonework under the eaves are good and compatible with the original work. The roof is generally sound, but the rain water pipes are in poor condition and need to be replaced. The Workshop is an unusual 1940s building. It has a limestone west elevation, facing the street, with strong stylistic and detailing references to the west elevation of the former Infants’ School. Such deference to style was not common in free-standing buildings of the time and may have had as much to do with on-site training for apprentice stone masons as it did with aesthetics. The building is a rectangle with a gable to the street and hip and lean-to to the rear. The roof and gutters are of asbestos and the 600mm eaves boxed and lined with flat asbestos sheet. The side and rear walls are of State Reds bricks, the north and south walls have a stone footing to 2 courses below floor level and rendered strips at window sill and head levels. The eclectic street elevation is in rock faced stone with an array of details that suggest exercises for apprentices, realised in a building, rather than stylistic endeavour. Mortar in the external brick walls of the Workshop is decomposing and there is also widespread damage to the brick and stone sections of the walls due to wind and rain. The use of asbestos in the roof, ceilings and claddings is a health concern and the asbestos needs to be removed in line with current regulations. Although both of the buildings have been in public ownership since they were built, there is little evidence of normal government standards of repairs and maintenance having been applied to the place, nor is any regular programme in place in early 1998. INTERNAL LAYOUT AND DETAILS: The Former Infants’ School form is of a gable-ended hall 8.53m by 15.24m and two gable-ended classrooms each 6.71m by 7.92m immediately south of the hall, sharing a common wall. The west wall of the classrooms is 3.96m west of the corresponding wall of the hall. The rear offset of the two gables is 3.05m. A 3.05m wide lean-to abuts the north and west walls of the hall. The Workshop building consists of two interconnected workshops with a lean-to office and verandah to the rear. The details are shown in the plans and internal elevations. SUBSEQUENT ALTERATIONS: The development of the buildings has been a very simple process. Neither the former Infants’ School nor the Workshop have had additions and the alterations have been minor. After the former Infants’ School was completed and occupied in July 1900, a woodshed (still standing) was added and seating for children added under the school in 1901. The drains, not evident from the standard PWD plan caused, problems as early a 1907. Given the fact that the drains were below street level this not surprising. The existing surface drains are predominantly of 1940s military type detail. Waterproofing problems, which were reported in 1912, were a predictable outcome of building without cavities in a very exposed location, as were further drainage problems reported in 1921. The east elevation has been modified by the addition of three double hung windows in the east wall of the hall - date undocumented, but requested in a 1921 report. They are lower than the windows in the classrooms, affording a view from within and have a rendered reinforced lintel over. The 1940 map shows the building and outbuildings almost unchanged from their 1901 layout. The Army proposed changes to the place in 1941 but the only substantial change was the addition of the stud wall dividing the hall into two areas and the addition of the ablution block to the rear. The ablution block has not been dated from the documentary evidence but details suggest further changes c1965. There have been no substantive alterations to the Workshop. A sawdust hopper was added c1965 and a stud wall and storage loft was added to workshop 1 in 1993. PROGNOSIS, SETTING AND LOCATION: Whilst the buildings have some substantial construction problems the prognosis for their continued commercial usefulness is good. The Highway frontage ensures an ongoing situation with a busy road and awkward access. There is a plan for the continuation of West Coast Highway on the western side of the railway reserve opposite but, whilst this might reduce traffic in Stirling Highway, it is unlikely to substantially change the character of the location. There is little of note in the existing landscaping and the documentary evidence fails to give light to any detailed information on the former state of the site. In particular there are very few photographs of the site even over the last 50 years. Little of the fabric of the buildings in the place has changed and most parts of the older buildings represent elements of the original uses.

History

The portion of Stirling Highway to the north of Queen Victoria Street was originally part of Perth Road. The area developed with mixed residential, commercial and industrial uses from the 1860s following the construction of the North Fremantle Traffic Bridge and the upgrading of Perth Road by convicts. The portion of Stirling Highway that runs between the Swan River and the junction with Queen Victoria Street was formerly called Bruce Street. It was named after Colonel Bruce, head of the Pensioner Guards. In the early days of North Fremantle’s development, the favoured residential area for settlement was slightly west of the North Fremantle oval and named ‘Brucetown’. Settlement of North Fremantle began in earnest in the late 1890s and Bruce Street was characterised by a mix of building types. On the southern side of the street between Queen Victoria Street (formerly Perth Road) and Tydeman Road (formerly Pensioner Road and then John Street), the buildings were predominantly residential. Industrial use was more common on the northern side. Stirling Bridge was constructed across the Swan River at the end of Bruce Street in 1974. As Bruce Street was now the major arterial link between the bridge and Stirling Highway, the street was widened and renamed as an extension of Stirling Highway. In recent years, new high-density residential development of the areas adjacent to the river on either side of Stirling Highway has seen a significant change in the mix of buildings in the southern section of Stirling Highway. In 2004, the street continues to have a mix of residential, retail and industrial land use. The site comprises the former North Fremantle Infants’ School (a single storey stone and iron building completed in 1900) and the former Army Workshop (a single storey brick, stone and asbestos building completed in 1942). In 1898, a separate infants department was established in the grounds of North Fremantle Primary School (established in 1890 at 101 Stirling Highway). Conditions at the primary school soon became too cramped and it was decided to build an infants’ school on a separate site. Land at 98 Stirling Highway was selected and in 1900, a tender for the new school buildings was accepted. The school was completed and occupied in July 1900 and was officially opened by Cyril Jackson, Inspector General of Schools, on 26 September 1900. A contract for additions to the newly completed classrooms was awarded in December that year. North Fremantle Infants’ School appeared in the1900 annual school and staff lists as a Class V school with a headmistress and two teachers. By 1913, the school was considerably overcrowded and the Senior Inspector of Schools recommended extensions to address the problem. It is not known what form these took. The school continued to operate until 1925, when it was listed for the last time in the annual school and staff lists as a Class IV school. The following year, the school amalgamated with the North Fremantle Primary School, which continued to use the old infant’s school site as a campus. In 1941, the old infants’ school building was acquired for Army training purposes. The following year, army trainees constructed a timber workshop to the south of the older school building. In 1944, the Australian Military Forces took over the site, which was subsequently occupied by the United States Navy as their Public Works Office. Following the end of World War II, the site reverted to the Education Department and the North Fremantle Primary School Parents and Friends’ Association requested that the infants be returned to their own school. However, Prime Minister John Tonkin intervened, stating that the premises were needed to train ex-servicemen under the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Scheme. The site took on a technical school function at this time, which continued until 1965, when the Health Department took on the workshop buildings for patient rehabilitative purposes. In 1900, ACTIV foundation (formerly the Slow Learning Children’s Group) took over operations of the workshop under a lease from the Minister for Health. The following year, the site was officially set aside as a workshop for intellectually disadvantaged persons. For further information see Heritage Council of Western Australia, ‘Register of Heritage Places: Permanent Entry – ACTIV Foundation Workshops, 1998. This place was included in the 'North Fremantle Heritage Study' (1994) as a place contributing to the development and heritage of North Fremantle. It was also included in the list of heritage places in the City of Fremantle identified by the Fremantle Society (1979/80) - RED -significant for contributing to the unique character of Fremantle.

Integrity/Authenticity

Refer to HCWA Register of Heritage Places - Assessment Documentation: Activ Foundation Workshop (Former North Fremantle Infants School) INTEGRITY The Former Infants’ School has a moderate level of integrity. It is no longer used for the purpose for which it was designed and is highly unlikely to return to that use. The current use (Sheltered Workshop) makes reasonable use of the spaces except the office. The Workshop has a moderate level of integrity. The Sheltered Workshop makes good use of the spaces and its function is similar to that for which the building was designed. AUTHENTICITY Both the buildings have a high level of authenticity, as there has been little substantial change over time. The Former Infant's School has undergone minor internal alterations while there is no evidence of substantial alterations to the Workshop. The grounds have a low level of authenticity, with only a woodshed from 1901 and part of a limestone retaining wall remaining from pre-1940.

Condition

Condition assessed as good (assessed from streetscape survey only).

Uses

Historic Themes

Creation Date

Publish place record online (inHerit):

Last Update