Murray Street
Murray Street, which was originally only between Havelock Steet, west Perth, and Barrack Street in the city, is named after Sir George Murray (1772-1846), Britain's Secretary of State for War and the Colonies during the foundation of Western Australia. He was briefly in Canada from December 1814 to May 1815 where he was appointed provisional Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada and reviewed the defences of Canada.
Goderich Street was originally the name given to that part of Murray Street between Barrack Street and Victoria Square. When the road was extended east beyond Victoria Square, the extension was named Goderich Street and the older section between Barrack Street and Victoria Square became an extension of Murray Street. The name recalls Frederick John Robinson, 1st Earl of Ripon (1782-1859). Known as Frederick John Robinson until 1827, The Viscount Goderich 1827-1833, and The Earl of Ripon 1833 onwards, he was a British statesman - Prime Minister of England 1827-1828 (when the Swan River colony was founded) and Secretary of State for War and the Colonies 1830-1833.
Around the turn of the 20th century, the west end of Murray Street, like the west end of Wellington Street which runs parallel to it, had developed into an area of warehouses, showrooms and office buildings for a variety of businesses, many buildings being a combination of all three. The flurry of building activity on the western fringes of the inner city centre was being driven by the gold mining broom which brought great wealth to the city, and continued to do so well into the iner-war years. Many of the office/warehouse buildings of the era have survived and present a totally different but equally interesting streetscape as Murray Street's heritage listed east end.
317-319 Murray Street, Perth, was built in 1908 and the Victoria Carriage Company became the first tenants. They didn't stay long - within three years J. and W.Bateman Mchts.moved in. They became a major retail hardware company in the 20th century. In 1913 they shared part of their premises with the Mt Lyell Chemical Works. By 1930, Falk & Co Ltd. operated here. Today, it is home to the The Margaret River Chocolate Co & Providore.
Built in 1910, 307-313 Murray Street, Perth, is 2 storey a copybook example of the Mannerist style, which was popular for office/warehouse buildings. A.G.Knoxs, Merchants, and pharmaceutical wholesaler and manufacturer Faulding & Co Ltd, shared the building from ten years until Faulding & Co Ltd became the major tenant. Its proprietor, Francis Hardy Faulding, opened his first pharmacy at 5 Rundle Street in Adelaide. Country Road are the building's current tenants.
Andrews House, at 360 Murray Street, has undergone numerous upgrades over the years to make the building look more modern than it is. Though its stonework is now painted a dark blue, it cannot hide the characteristic arches and stone embelishments that typify Federation era warehouse buildings. Andrews House is a two storey brick and iron commercial building built in 1910. Initially a warehouse, it was built for Massey Harris Co by the builder W.Atkins. It is one of the few remaining original unpainted brick and stucco facades in the area.
Murray Mews, 329-331 Murray Street, Perth, was in 1899 for R.A.Fredrick by the builder L.Harrison, Murray Mews has an Art Deco Style facade typical of interwar years. The building comprised two shops fronting Murray Street and two factories and a workshop at the rear. Early users of the warehouse were the clothiers Levian & Bradshaw, while the factories were utilised by the Galwey Printing Co and a boot manufacturer.
As the stone work above Federation era arches proclaims, 410-414 Murray Street was built to house the city's telephone exchange. It was built in 1930. All the exchange equipment has been entirely removed.
325 Murray Street was another public utility building - an electricity substation - disguised as a commercial building. It is a predominantly brick building, built in 1914 in the Federation Free Classical style, for Perth City Council. Substation No. 2 was one of four electricity substations constructed by Perth City Council to operate in conjunction with the new East Perth Power Station (1916), the first centralised electricity supply in Perth, and continued to operate as an electricity substation into the twenty-first century. All the machinery has been entirely removed. The substation demonstrates the practice of constructing attractive industrial buildings to be situated amongst commercial and other public spaces, which is no longer common practice.
451 Murray Street (cnr of Milligan Street) was built in the Interwar Chicagoesque style, being a significant example of the work of prominent Western Australian architectural firm Oldham, Boas and Ednie- Brown. The three storey reinforced concrete, black and steel structure was a custom built warehouse/office building for cigarette and tobacco products manufacturer W.D. & H.O. Wills in 1927, who remained in the building and used it as its state office until the 1960s. The building is significant for its innovative structural design and because it was one of two buildings in Perth to be configured with suspended concrete floor slabs. The building was fully restored and three levels added to the top in 2007. It is now a serviced apartments building.
Anchor House, at 352 Murray Street, was built in 1905 as a warehouse for importers and tea merchants, clothing and shoe wholesalers. Built in the Federation Free Renaissance Style it was designed by the architects Oldham & Cox and erected by F.Seue for the importers G. Wood & Son Co. The second floor was added in 1922.
The Royal Hotel at 300 Murray Street (facing Wellington Street), which is now part of the Raine Square complex, forms part of a significant precinct of late-nineteenth and early- twentieth century buildings in William, Wellington and Murray streets to the west of the central business district. The progressive development of the hotel from a simple two-storey brick building facing Wellington Street in 1882 to the opulent Victorian Second Empire Style corner edifice in 1906 represents the rapid growth and development of Western Australia from 1880 to 1910 primarily as a result of the gold rushes.
The section of Murray Street between Pier Street and Victoria Avenue has been Heritage Listed as part of the National Estate as it is one of the finest streetscapes in WA and is representative of nineteenth and early twentieth century buildings in central Perth. It is considered significant for the consistency of materials and scale of its buildings and the way in which major structures are complemented by secondary ones.
Government Printing Office, Cnr Pier and Murray Streets, Perth, WA.v A four storey corner building, constructed of load bearing brick in a subdued version of the Federation Free Style, with projecting corner tower. The building is a rare surviving example of a late 1890s government building constructed, and subsequently substantially modified, by the Public Works Department to house an expanding Government Department.
1899 - Salvation Army Citadel, Cnr Irwin and Murray Street, Perth, WA.
The North building (1903) is a two storey commercial building of tuck pointed brick with rendered dressings. The South building (above) is a three storey masonry structure with asymmetrical four storey tower. The tower has faceted oriel bay window over arched entry. Facade decoration includes Victorian Italianate style label moulds and cornices. It also uses tourelles and crenellations to effect 'fortress' theme.
The Royal Perth Hospital Museum takes visitors on a walk through the colourful history of the hospital from its opening in 1855, right through to the present day. Packed with weird, bizarre and incredibly interesting outdated medical equipment from days gone by. If you are interested in the radical changes that have occurred in medicine, make sure you visit the RPH Museum. The Museum is open to the general public Wednesday and Thursday from 9:00am to 2:00pm. Tours are a gold coin donation and can be booked Monday through Thursday by contacting the Museum Curator.
Location: Level 1, Colonial House, Murray St, Perth WA. Phone: (08) 9224 3433.
St Mary's Cathedral, Victoria Square, Perth, WA
The landmark Gothic-style Cathedral is a combination of two buildings in Victoria Square, Perth. The first was opened in 1865 and the second, built to replace the first, was opened in 1930. The pressure and cost restraints of the Great Depression meant the new Cathedral could not be completed, so it was joined to part of the first building. A recent Commonwealth funding contribution went towards a major reconstruction project that finally saw the cathedral completed, enabling an expansion of the 900-strong congregation to 1200 people. The completed cathedral includes elements of 19th, 20th and 21st century building.
- More
- More
- More
- More
The Young Australia League was established in 1905 and started the first AFL football team in Western Australia. It expanded to include literature, debate and performance. In 1909 the league had its first of numerous interstate tours and many prominent Western Australians were privileged to further their education through their travel with the YAL. See a variety of photos and artefacts associated with both sporting and band history for almost 100 years. The Museum and Library is housed in a heritage listed Art Deco building which was built in 1924 to accommodate the League's clubrooms and administration.
Location: 45 Murray Street at the corner of Irwin Street, Perth
1912 - Former Chief Secretary's Office, 57 Murray Street, Perth, WA
A two storey building constructed in Donnybrook Stone. The front elevation has ashlar stonework with a rusticated stone base and face brickwork to the side elevations.The front elevation is divided into three principal bays in a symmetrical arrangement around the main entrance. The roof is hipped over each bay, the central hip is raised. There are decorative gablets with timber louvred vents and chimneys of face brickwork with rendered capping with dentils. The roof is covered with terracotta tiles with decorative ridge capping. There are wide projecting eaves with timber battened eaves, which are supported by large timber brackets.
1901 - 23-25 Murray Street, Perth, WA
Built as Perth's new Fire Brigade Headquarters in 1901, the Romanesque style building comprised two floors, with almost half the upper level given over to the Superintendent s quarters. This consisted of three bedrooms, living room, sitting room, pantry and kitchen. On the rear veranda was a bathroom and a spiral staircase to the ground level so that the Superintendent could gain direct access to the station yard. On the other part of the first floor was a dormitory, which was located directly above the main engine room. At the rear of the dormitory, a gangway gave access to ablution facilities, which were immediately over the horse stables. The ground floor consisted of two horsedrawn appliance bays and a longer one for the horse-drawn turntable ladder. At each side was a pole, placed so the firemen could slide down from the dormitory above.
In 1911, the fire station was extended from four bays to five along Murray St, with the addition of a similar limestone arch. It was further extended in 1924 and 1954. The Central Fire Station remained in use until 1979, after which it was converted for use as a Fire Brigade Museum and Education Centre.
1908-09 - Kirkman House, 10 Murray St, Perth, WA
Kirkman House was designed by Hilson Beasley in 1908-09 and is an excellent example of the Federation Queen Anne style of architecture. Kirkman House utilises the red brick which is the predominant building material within the Murray Street precinct and it is compatible in scale with the other buildings. It was built as nurses accommodation and in honour of Sister Annie Kirkman of the Perth Hospital Board. The four storey brick and tile symmetrical building (1909) has a three storey south facing verandah, dormer windows and a decorative cupola. The garden`s Moreton Bay fig tree and fences are a feature. A bas relief frieze around part of the upper floor reflects the wrought iron pattern of the verandahs of the Fire Brigade Building further west in Murray Street.
1928-33 - Commonwealth Bank Building, 1 Forrest Place, cnr Murray Street, Perth, WA
The Commonwealth Bank in Perth is a significant example of the inter-war Beaux Arts style of architecture used for banking head offices in the early twentieth century and only one of a few examples of this architectural style in Perth. It is the only bank in Perth with such a substantial head office and was one of the last monumental stone faced buildings constructed by the Commonwealth Government in Australia.
Its designer was J S Murdoch, the Commonwealth Government Architect, who had a leading connection with the design of practically all Commonwealth built works during 1904-28. The bank is of a steel frame construction, allowing monumental construction characterised by large open spaces inside the building. The building used new technology in bank safety such as the installation of a night safe, an automatic fire alarm and multiple locks on the doors.
The building was part of a plan formulated in 1916 to a civic precinct at a point directly facing the gateway to the city, the railway station. It included a street running between Murray and Wellington Streets (that street became Forrest Place), with a General Post Office (GPO), the head office of the Commonwealth Bank and, Customs Department. All but the latter building, eventuated though it took over a decade to bring the plan to fruition.
The Commonwealth Bank in Perth is a six storey stone clad building which exhibits a largeness of scale, symmetry, the use of Classical motifs and steel framed construction. The local timber firm of Bunnings supplied the jarrah for the building. Granite was quarried from the Greenmount Quarry and transported by dray to the site.
1964 - 70 Pier Street (nr Murray Street), Perth, WA
Five shops and a Salvation Army operated Coffee Palace, built in 1903, were demolished for the building of The Railton Temperance Hotel, now the 98 room Pensione Hotel The term Coffee Palace was primarily used in Australia to describe the temperance hotels which were built during the period of the 1880s although there are references to the term also being used, to a lesser extent, in the United Kingdom. They were hotels that did not serve alcohol, built in response to the temperance movement and, in particular, the influence of the Independent Order of Rechabites in Australia. Coffee Palaces were often multi-purpose or mixed use buildings which included a large number of rooms for accommodation as well as ballrooms and other function and leisure facilities.
The building was designed by the noted architectural firm, Forbes and Fitzhardinge, for one of Forbes' earlier clients, The Salvation Army. As its name infers, the hotel was just a more modern version of its Coffee Palace that previously occupied the site. Its design is is copybook International style, with its curtain wall facade disected by a chocolate brick protruding section which houses the lift and stair wells. It is said to have been the first new city hotel in Perth since World War II, which is rather surprising since one would have expected other new hotels would have been built in Perth ahead of the 1962 Commonwealth Games.
Goderich Street is in reality the extension of Murray Street to the east of Victoria Square. That part of Murray Street between Barrack Street and Victoria Square was originally part of Goderich Street. Its name recalls Frederick John Robinson, 1st Earl of Ripon (1782-1859). Known as Frederick John Robinson until 1827, The Viscount Goderich 1827-1833, and The Earl of Ripon 1833 onwards, he was a British statesman - Prime Minister of England 1827-1828 and Secretary of State for War and the Colonies 1830-1833.
Take a walk through Mercedes College and discover the history of one of Western Australia's earliest schools still located on the original 1846 site. The Sisters of Mercy arrived from Ireland in 1841 and immediately set about providing education in the colony. This convent was completed in 1871, becoming the first school in Australia to be founded by a religious congregation and Western Australia's first permanent school. In 1896 St Joseph's School day school and Our Lady's College boarding school opened their doors and the School House became the boarding house for St Joseph's. In 1963 St Joseph's attained highschool status enabling the acceptance of Leaving students and in 1967 a merger between St Joseph's Victoria Square and Our Lady's College saw the establishment of the current school - now proudly known as Mercedes College. The name Mercedes is Spanish for Mercy.
A visit to the Mercy Heritage Centre will show the different layers of the building's history and the stories of its occupants.
Location: 86 Goderich Street, cnr Victoria Avenue and Hay Street, Perth, WA<
1937 - former Rostrevor Flats, Mercedes College group, 173 Goderich Street, East Perth, WA
This was once a splendid block of flats when inner city living was a new phenomonen. It is a two storey rendered brick building with tile hip roof. The building features a projecting curved wall to the corner with decorative panels. Art Deco bas-relief panels feature stylised mechanical deign. The building displays tall chimneys with terracotta pots. The Art Deco building was given a conservation award for its sensitive conversion in 1995 with most internal structure and detailing retained. Architects: Cavanagh and Cavanagh.
