Town Lot 20

Cliff Street, between High Street and Croke Lane.

The earliest owner of Lot 20 recorded by [[../hitchcock.html|Hitchcock]] (1929) was Robert Maydwell, 1829-1837.

streetsoffreo:
The property at 18 Cliff Street was transferred it to Stockley, 1855-1859, and later to Robert King & Son, 1876-1878. During the 1880s merchant William S. Loton (from 1885 was known as Padbury, Loton and Co) was listed in the rate books as the owner of Lot 20 Cliff Street. During WW2 the premises were used by the US Navy. In 1949 (18) Mick Servillo/(18a) and brother in law Ignazio de Bari. The current building appears to have been constructed in 1952 and owner/occupants were Michele Servillo (No. 18) and Ignazio de Bari. The residences remained in these names until 1964-1968 when Ignazio died and Susanna de Bari inherited his half. 18 Cliff Street remained in the Servillo family until 2006.

The buildings on the site in 2022, at 16-18 Cliff Street, are a pair of semi-detached dwellings. One is (or was) available for hire as accommodation.

Hitchcock, writing in 1919, describing the eastern side of Cliff Street, south of High Street, as he remembered it was in 1869:
The corner now occupied by the Bank of New South Wales was vacant land, and next to it was the offices and store of Mr. Robert King, one of our earliest merchants. Of these only the store (which was later occupied by the W.A. Bank) now remains. The private residences of Messrs. King, Vincent, Dr. Shipton and others occupied the remaining space down to the [[../hotels/pier.html|Pier Hotel]] corner, which was then unbuilt upon. The only other buildings in the Cliff-street of that day were the Water Police Station and quarters at the corner of Marine-terrace ; these were practically rebuilt in later times, but were used for their original purposes until the recent disbandment of the water police, or rather, their amalgamation with the land forces.

References and Links

Fremantle History Centre. Look for the PDFs called:
Purchasers of Fremantle Town Lots 1829-1837
Purchasers of Fremantle Town Lots 1855-1879

Hitchcock, J.K. 1919, [[../books/hitchcock1919.html|'Early Days of Fremantle: High Street 50 Years Ago']], Fremantle Times, one of a series of articles on 'Early Days of Fremantle' publ. 21 March - 20 June 1919.

streetsoffreo.com.au page for 18 Cliff Street.

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 3 December, 2022 and hosted at freotopia.org/lots/20.html (it was last updated on 14 December, 2022), and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.