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Commercial Bank
Commercial Bank, 1901, 20 High Street, (partly) Notre Dame School of Nursing & Midwifery and Midwifery Laboratory.
File:Freotopia westend img 20high.jpg
What follows is from the Heritage Council:
Rates records show that the property was originally held by the Habgoods. The lot was subdivided in 1883; one of the lots having a 5 roomed cottage, the other undeveloped. In 1884 the National Bank purchased the property from Mrs Habgood. But although from 1885 the site of this building was designated for a bank, it was not until 1902/03 that Harry James Higham was listed in the rate books as occupier of the Commercial Bank with four other offices listed in addition.
In 2002 the building was vacant, and has since been taken over for Notre Dame University.
Significant for associations with Fremantle businessman H.J. Higham. The place is of social significance as evidenced by its classification by the National Trust.
Two storey rendered building with a truncated corner adjoining 18 High Street, with a zero setback from the pavement. The ground floor has ashlar effect rendering and the first floor features quoining. The decorative parapet has engaged low piers above a bracketed cornice. The entrance across the truncated corner has a pair of glazed doors that are probably not original and the double hung sash windows are arched with stucco architraves on the first floor. Architect William Edward Robertson.
[[../fremantlewalks/index.html|Hutchison]]:
Former Commercial Bank Building. On the north-west corner, at 20 High Street. The Habgood family had a five-roomed cottage here in the nineteenth century. After Robert Habgood’s death in 1882, his wife sold the vacant portion of the property to the National Bank of Australia in 1884. The bank appears not to have been built until 1902. In 1960 the architects Hobbs Winning and Leighton designed renovations.
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 29 August, 2015 and hosted at freotopia.org/banks/commercial.html (it was last updated on 10 December, 2023), and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.