Buildings/cellars.html
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'Cellars' building, aka Craig's Chambers
10 High St, 1900
Cellars Building centre, Tannatt Chambers to the left. The Webb building, on the right, has had the groundfloor facade restored since this photo was taken.
Skip Watkins photo 1985, City Library Local History Collection E000220. Library note: Designed by E. H. Dean Smith in 1900, as was No. 8 adjacent. The building has two storeys and a cellar on a very narrow frontage. Built for Frank Craig. The place was Cellars Restaurant in the 1980s. In 2002 Workshop 3S Jewellery.
This is commonly known as the Cellars Building from the name of a restaurant which was here in the 1980s - in the cellar. It was built for Frank Craig in 1900, to a design by H. Deane Smith (or Dean), so should more properly be known by Craig's name. Cartoonist Paul Rigby had a restaurant called Roo on the Roof in the cellar in the 1960s. The restaurant was later (or also) known as The Cellars, giving the building one of its names. The restaurant was patronised by gay men, and was the subject of frequent police raids at a time when homosexuality was illegal.
The building is said to be haunted by the ghost of a sailor who was murdered in the attic not long after the building was opened.
Paul Rigby, together with Alec Smith, of the Fremantle Hotel, lobbied Tony Samson to save the Liebler building, nearby in Cliff St. Samson saved only the facade, which still stands.
Heritage Council:
Designed by E. H. Dean Smith in 1900, as was No. 8 adjacent. The building has two storeys and a cellar on a very narrow frontage. Built for Frank Craig.
The place was Cellars Restaurant in the 1980s.
Currently (2002), Workshop 3S Jewellery.
Three storey painted tucked point brick and rendered building with basement below street level. The basement and ground floors are recessed behind a pilaster façade with simple stucco brackets and the parapet has a highly decorative stucco pediment. The main entrance door and casement windows are arched with timber mullions. The first floor has timber sash windows with decorative stucco above.
The place is of historic significance as an example of a commercial building in the Old Port City of Fremantle dating from the gold boom period in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The place is significant because, when viewed from the street, it is a substantially intact example of a federation period commercial building which contributes to the very significant Old Port City of Fremantle. The place is of social significance as evidenced by its classification by the National Trust. Heritage Council.
In 2021 this was the only building in the street still bearing remnants of the Arcs d'Ellipses installation perpetrated by Felice Varini in 2017. In 2022 the facade has been renovated with the paint removed, exposing the brickwork.
Architect Michael Patroni owns the building and his spaceagency studio is in the basement.
References and Links
Hutchison, David, Fremantle Walks.
Bell, David 2016, 'Push to quash gay convictions', Fremantle Herald, 1 July.
Streets of Freo have a list of the occupants of Lot 18 1900-1949.
Skip Watkins photo, top, from the Library. Bottom photo courtesy of Roel Loopers 22 June 2022.
See also: FHS Newsletter, Winter, August 2022, page 6.
This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally created on 27 June, 2016 and hosted at freotopia.org/buildings/cellars.html (it was last updated on 19 March, 2024). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.