HOUSE, 2 STOKES STREET

Statement of Significance

House, 2 Stokes Street is a single storey timber and iron house dating from 1916. It has aesthetic value for its contribution to the streetscape and the surrounding area. It is representative of the typical building stock and of working people’s living conditions within the residential areas of Fremantle. The place is significant as an example of Fremantle’s vernacular architecture.

Physical Description

House, 2 Stokes Street is a single storey timber framed, painted weatherboard clad house with a hipped corrugated iron roof. A red brick chimney is visible behind the hipped roof on the right-hand side. There is a separate bull nosed verandah supported by square profile timber posts along the front of the house. The façade is symmetrical with a central front door flanked by timber framed double hung sash windows. The door has unusual side lights that extend only from dado height to the top light. The following places form a significant group and contribute to the streetscape: 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 14, 16, 18, 20, 21 & 23 Stokes Street.

History

In PO Directories, the house was originally number 21, and became number 2 when the whole street was renumbered in 1939. It is located on Lot 21 of 38, which was recorded as a vacant lot in 1910/11. Fremantle Rate Book records register rates being collected from a cottage on the lot by 1918/19. In PO Directories, Frank L. Culley is listed as living in that house in Stokes Street in 1916, which gives a reasonably accurate date of construction. Frank died in 1927: ‘CULLEY. — On August 26, 1927, at the Fremantle Hospital, Frank Lionel, dearly beloved husband of Beatrice Annie Culley, and loving father of Laurence, Donald and Lorna Culley, of Stokes-street, Beaconsfield; aged 49 years.’ (The West Australian 27 August 1927 p 1.) By 1949 when post office directory records cease Mrs Beatrice Culley, Frank’s widow, is still residing in the house. The 1947 aerial photograph (Landgate) shows the small cottage, with a house adjacent on the south and a vacant lot on the north. Along the north boundary of the block is a long rectangular building, which is indicated on the 1950 sewerage map (No. 2190) as a corrugated iron shed and wash house. The toilet and well are located further to the rear (east) of the lot. The sewerage plan notes the house as weatherboard with a full-length verandah along the front, with a central path leading to it from the street. Aerial photos (Landgate) show that very little changes are made to the house until the period 1985-1995, when the large shed is removed, and a smaller extension is built to the north-east corner of the house. A new shed was built in the south-east corner of the lot. This place was added to the Heritage List and the Municipal Heritage Inventory on 10 January 2018.

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