The Gardens at Bishops See
Visiting The Gardens at Bishop's See provides an opportunity to experience one of Perth's hidden gems.
Bishop Hale poured as much attention into the gardens as into the house. Amongst other trees, Bishop Hale planted willow trees from slips from the trees at Napoleon's tomb on St Helena. These willow trees are located on the western side of spring Street. The other willow trees found in the garden are from later periods. There was a natural spring, from which Spring Street gets its name, which flowed through the orchard and under the road, to what was then the Stanley Brewery. Indian bamboo grew along the Spring Street boundary, and paperbarks and rushes grew at the bottom of the garden where the Swan River originally flowed.
By 1876, the garden was well stocked with fruit trees and vines and with ornamental trees . Oak trees were planted between 1895 and 1929, two of which are said to survive. As part of the refurbishment, the lawns at the front of Bishop's House have been replaced with a parterre garden - an ornamental arrangement of flowerbeds of different shapes and sizes, which includes an ornamental watercourse. A smaller parterre garden already exists in the grounds at the rear of Bishop s House. In 2012, sculpture work by noted Australian artist Michael Le Grand.
Located on land known as the Bishop's See, Bishop's House was funded and built by wealthy clergyman Mathew Blagden Hale, the first Anglican Bishop of Western Australia, as a residence for himself and his family and it continued to house Anglican Bishops until 1946. In 1959 it was leased by Legacy Australia as their Perth headquarters, therefore being known as Legacy House.
Bishop s House accommodated different companies and groups, including the Anglican Health and Welfare Services (Anglicare) and the Australian City Properties, owned by English entrepreneur Alistair McAlpine, who used Bishop's House as his home and offices.
Currently, Bishop's House as part of the Bishops See site is owned and managed by two companies, the Multiplex Property Trust and the Hawaiian Property Group, who purchased the site in 1999 and built a nine storey state of the art office building known as 235 St Georges Terrace, with plans to build a second office tower once a major tenant is secured.
The latest reincarnation of the Bishop's House occurred in 2010, when it was transformed into a multi-level restaurant, Lamont s Bishop's House, run by Kate Lamont.
Located at 78 Mounts Bay Road (corner Spring Street). Entrance is also from St. Georges Terrace, at the corner of Spring Street.
