Fremantle Park

Fremantle Park was given in 1879 for the use of the people of Fremantle by Queen Victoria, through the vice-regent Governor Sir Harry Ord, in exchange for the loss of The Green, the recreation space created by the people and taken over by the government for railway purposes (the first railway station). More than half of it has since been taken away by government departments. What's left is bordered by Ellen, Parry and Ord Streets. The Tennis and Bowling clubs were in the Parry/Ellen St corner of Fremantle Park, while most of the rest of what is left of the original grant is a playing field (which is also sometimes used for 'events'), still large enough to allow for two cricket matches at the same time. It is used by CBC for their playing fields. Do they pay for the use?

From February 2020 the Fremantle Park Sport and Community Centre accommodates the Tennis, Bowls, and Workers Clubs in a new building on Ellen Street on land which was formerly one of the bowling greens. In July 2023 it has changed its working name to Fremantle Park Club. I predicted in 2018 that it would eventually become known as Freo Park. We'll see.

Work began on the new building 1 April 2019 and was completed c. end February 2020 - a very long time for a very ordinary building.

This is the unattractive entrance to the FreoPark building - the side it presents to Ellen Street. Note that the City suggests by the signage that it paid for it, tho it paid for less than half.

The building was closed in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The building was officially 'opened' by the mayor on Monday 12 October 2020. Only the Centre board members were present, plus a couple of random politicians.

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Photo courtesy of Roel Loopers, featuring the heritage tramlines holding up the lights at the Bowling Club. John Reed's camera (to capture the time-lapse recording) can be seen in the top left of the photo.

The progress photo below, taken by the camera above, shows a late state of the uncompleted project. Click/tap image for larger size.

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Click/tap here for the video of John Reed's timelapse project, April-September 2019.

The Foundation Management Committee of the Fremantle Park Sport and Community Centre in 2020 was chaired by Lawrence Apps, with Donald Whittington as Deputy, Matthew Ngui, Secretary, and Keith Bowden, Treasurer. Laurie Apps was also President of the Tennis Club, Don Whittington President of the Workers Club, and Matthew Ngui and Keith Bowden were respectively President and VP of the Bowling Club. Other members of the committee were: Phil Bayley (Tennis), Adele Carles (Workers), Ellis Griffiths (Workers), Tricia Hille (Tennis), Geoff Paganoni (Bowls).

Original boundaries of Fremantle Park - map drawn before 1852 when the cemetery was established in the top right corner. Stirling Street and Asylum Road were not built as shown. The northern part of Stirling Street became Shuffrey Street and Ord Street now follows approximately the southern part of 'Asylum Road'.

The original 45 acre reserve originally included nearly all the land between Ellen, Parry, Quarry, Finnerty, and East Streets (except for the Lunatic Asylum [Arts Centre] and its grounds) and therefore included what is now John Curtin school. The second cemetery (called Skinner Street Cemetery) had been excluded in 1852, the year it was consecrated. The Education Department later took over all the land between Ord and East Street—more than half of the original grant for a people's park.

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Fremantle Park - showing also Skinner Street Cemetery and the location of the Asylum.

References, Links, Acknowledgements

Maps from Hutchison.
Time lapse photos by John Reed.
You may like to watch this video: Faces of Freo: The Workers Club.

Freotopia

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 21 June, 2016 and hosted at freotopia.org/park/index.html (it was last updated on 14 March, 2024). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.