East Fremantle Presbyterian Church

Corner of King Street (which no longer exists at this location) and Canning Road (Highway). The site is now in the middle of Stirling Highway at the point where it crosses Canning Highway. It's easy to understand where it was because it was just across King Street from the Plympton Post Office - which is still standing and used by a real estate agent, Yard.

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Library:
The foundation stone for the East Fremantle Presbyterian Church was laid on 27.07.1898 by the Reverend Dr D S Duff of Glasgow. The church closed 24.06.1963 and was demolished for the Stirling Bridge.
Photograph 1213A from the Fremantle City Library Local History Photographic Collection. Date c. 1910. Text from the Library entry.
[Date of closure to be confirmed. Bruce Thorpe - see below - recalls attending the last service in 1973, so the Library's '1963' might be a simple typo for 1973. The bridge was not built until 1974.]

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Plympton Post Office and the East Fremantle Presbyterian Church
Library:
The building on the left is the East Fremantle Post Office, opened on 14.03.1898 as the Plympton Post Office but renamed East Fremantle in 1899. The first Post Master was J. Adams. On the opposite corner of Canning Highway and King Street was the East Fremantle Presbyterian Church. The foundation stone was laid on 27.07.1898 by the Reverend Dr. D.S. Duff of Glasgow. The building was opened for divine worship on Sunday 18.09.1898.
The area of Plympton is on the right.
From a postcard published by A.J. Ratcliffe, 75 Barrack Street, Perth.
Photograph 881 from the Fremantle City Library Local History Photographic Collection. Date 1905-1920. Text from the Library entry. Where the church was is now the middle of Stirling Highway. The post office still stands, right at the corner of that and Canning Highway.
The building behind the church (to the left/south) looks the church hall.

Bruce Thorpe recalls: "I lived at 97 Canning Road/Highway from 1951 to 1959. My dad, Reverend Hallam Thorpe, was the Minister of the Presbyterian Church on the corner of King Street and Canning Highway. The Church's foundation stone was laid in 1898. The Manse (No 97) was next door and 95 and 93 were next to us. These three houses, I suspect, were built at the same time by the same builder - very similar facades and lay-out: single storey at the front and double at the rear due to the sloping blocks. Hart's Shell Garage was on the corner of Sewell Street."

References, Links, Acknowledgement

Many thanks to Bruce Thorpe for sharing his recollection, which is a small part of some [[../books/thorpebruce.html|memories of East Fremantle]] which he has kindly allowed me to put on this website.

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 1 November, 2014 and hosted at freotopia.org/churches/efreopres.html (it was last updated on 23 November, 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.