Residence - 108 Forrest Road

Statement of Significance

Residence, Forrest Road is representative of the Federation Bungalow style in the Hamilton Hill area. Residence, Forrest Road represents a rural lifestyle no longer practiced in Hamilton Hill. Residence, Forrest Road is one of few pre World War I houses in the district that still remains.

Physical Description

Set back from the road on a large property behind a large limestone fence, Residence, Forrest Road is a Federation Bungalow with timber walls and a hipped corrugated iron roof. It has wide verandahs under a broken backed roof. However, much of the building fabric has been replaced with new cladding, there is a new roof, and extensions have been made to the rear and east side (studio and garage). The verandahs are also additions.

History

Hamilton Hill originally was part of a large land grant owned by George Robb. In the 1890s when Perth and Fremantle’s population grew rapidly with the gold boom, Robb’s land was subdivided into 42 sections and swiftly taken up for rural development. Cereal crops, cattle herds, market gardens and dairies were all established to feed Western Australia’s expanding populace. Two of the people who held land in the north of Hamilton Hill were Michael Healy and Septimus Dixon. Hamilton Hill was also home to a number of lime-kilns which were vital for the production of lime for the building industry which was booming at this time. With a new harbour in Fremantle established just after the turn of the century, the effects of the gold boom and the growth of industry down the coast from Fremantle to Coogee, demand for new residential areas in the Cockburn and Fremantle districts from 1914 onwards, was huge. The Healy and Dixon families both quit their rural landholdings, which allowed the land to be subdivided into urban blocks. The north of Hamilton Hill, which included Clontarf Road, took on the character of a suburb of Fremantle though without some of the same facilities or standard of living. Berson notes that in this period from 1914-20: Along Clontarf Road new settlers on the small residential blocks were establishing their homes with very 220 | P a g e few amenities and with the same pioneering spirit as those on rural holdings... Most people in the locality worked either in Fremantle or at the slaughter yards at Robb Jetty and some still caught the early morning train to Midland Junction to their work at the Railway Workshops. While William Thompson (settled on 2.5 acres in Clontarf Road) and his son John, worked at nights to sink a well, the family carted water from a quarter of a mile away using a yoke, a kerosene tin and a blue enamel bucket that had been the container for a large fruit cake brought with the family on the boat. In 1999 the owner of the residence said that the house was once the home to the Dixon family. The Dixon family were prominent rural settlers in the Hamilton Hill district and were very influential in development of the region. The current owners have restyled the house with new extensions, plaster, windows, cladding and roof. The wide verandahs were also added and are not original.

Integrity/Authenticity

INTEGRITY: High AUTHENTICITY: Low

Condition

Good

Uses

Historic Themes

Creation Date

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