SHOP & HOUSE (FMR), 45 FORREST STREET

Parent Place or Precinct

26090 Holland/Forrest Street Heritage Area

Physical Description

Shop & House (Fmr), 45 Forrest Street comprises two adjoining single storey places constructed as a simple variation of the Federation Bungalow style of Architecture. The house is timber framed and clad with painted weatherboards. The roof is gabled and corrugated iron clad. The front verandah is under a separate corrugated iron roof. The verandah is supported by timber posts with decorative timber brackets. The façade has a timber entry door and a pair of timber casement windows. The place has a painted timber picket front boundary fence and timber gate.
The original shop is limestone rubble and red face brick tuckpointed (stretcher bond) with a gabled corrugated iron roof. A small section of limestone is located under the windows to the front façade. A simple timber framed corrugated iron clad awning is above the windows to the front façade. Timber weatherboards are used to the gable end. The former shop is constructed on the front boundary line (zero setback).

History

Fremantle Rate Books show that rates were collected from a cottage on the lot by 1900 which gives a reasonably accurate date of construction.
In 1902 post office directories list William L. Walsh as the occupant. According to rate books, the property passed from Mr Walsh to the government and the area became known as “The Blocks” or Workmen’s Blocks, however post office directories list Walsh as the resident up to 1905.
The Blocks was a government housing scheme to replace the canvas town communities set up in the gold rush. The land was subdivided and lots were made available on a 21-year lease on payment of 10/- on application and 10/- annually. Freehold was available later.

Numbers were allocated in 1905, at which time the house was No. 138. It became number 45 when the whole street was renumbered in 1939.
In 1906 occupancy of the cottage passed to Thomas Lee and ownership was transferred from the government to Janet Lee by c1912. Thomas Lee is listed as a storekeeper from 1910, although it cannot be confirmed if this means the shop was built later than the house, or that directories became more detailed.
The 1914 sewerage plan (No. 2118) shows a weatherboard cottage on the western boundary of the lot, and a brick shop on the Forrest Street boundary. (It is in fact limestone walls with brick quoining to the corners.) There are various outbuildings to the rear.
The 1947 aerial photograph (Landgate) shows the house and shop, that seem to be attached or now under one roof.
Thomas Lee owned the house and shop up to 1951/2. It is not known when the shop ceased to operate, but in 1972-74 the rate books record it as simply a residence.

Later aerial photos (Landgate) show that between 1985 and 1995 the rear outbuildings may have been modified or removed and the house altered to the rear, as well as another house built on the rear portion of the lot. The former shop that fronts the street has not been altered.
Colour photos from c1991 show a shop building on the footpath behind a wide road verge, a single room of limestone rubble construction with red brick quoins and vents high in the western side wall (no windows).

Condition

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

Uses

Historic Themes

Creation Date

Publish place record online (inHerit):

Last Update

Disclaimer

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