Murray & Goodchild:
WITCHCLIFFE
Latitude 34 02 S Longitude 115 E.
The townsite of Witchcliffe is located in the south-west agricultural region, 286 kilometres by road south-southwest of Perth and nine kilometres south of Margaret River. The name Witchcliffe was first used in this district for Witchcliffe Cave, the name being recorded by a surveyor in 1900. The name was probably given by the Bussell family who settled near here in the 1850s, naming their property Wallcliffe House. Both the homestead and the cave are in an area of coastal cliffs, hence the 'cliffe' part of the name. In 1924 the government extended the railway to Witchcliffe, and at, first selected the name Newralingup for the siding, but the name Narawary was approved. However, a post office named Witchcliffe had already been opened when the railway siding was named, and Narawary siding was renamed Witchcliffe in February 1925- Also in 1924 interest was shown in blocks of land at Witchcliffe Siding, and after investigation a scheme of subdivision was planned, lots surveyed, and a townsite gazetted in 1926.
References and Links
Murray, Ian & Brian Goodchild 2003, Araluen to Zanthus: A Gazetteer of Perth Suburbs and Western Australian Towns, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, in association with the Department of Land Information (as above).
Wikipedia page.
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 4 June 2024 and hosted at freotopia.org/places/witchcliffe.html (it was last updated on 4 June, 2024), and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.