My favourite street?
The little gem of Pearse Street, nestling peacefully between the old Town Centre and the railway, with its air of quiet neighbourliness, ranks high among my favourite streets in North Fremantle; but Harvest Road, my home of fifty years, in just two houses that keep watch over each other across the street, has to take my top spot.
Streets evolve, and Harvest Road has done so before my eyes this last half-century. What was once a splendid Haussmann boulevard (photos 1,2 in the gallery above) that ran straight as an arrow 800m from the river to the Town Centre, linking Harvey Beach to Mojos, had its Town Centre connection severed by Stirling Highway, and its up-river aspect blocked by the architectural excrescence (4) of the Water Police headquarters. The original blend of worker’s cottages and dignified mansions remains, but the cottages, bought for a song and lovingly restored by their young owners, now command the price of a whole opera. The transition, which saw those now middle-aged owners become paper millionaires, ran in parallel with the area’s de-industrialisation from Pong Alley to much sought-after riverside suburb. Harvest Road still shares with most streets in Fremantle a neighbourliness where houses address the street and high walls are virtually non-existent; where neighbours chat, dispute, lookout for and help each other and greet passers-by. But important as this is, of equal importance is what a street contains and where it will take you.
To discover what by these criteria makes Harvest Road one of the jewels in the crown of North Fremantle, let’s take a stroll along the boulevard.
At its eastern end, Harvey Beach (photo 3) retains its charm despite the Water Police buildings lurking next to it (photo 4). There you might see children of all hues jumping off the jetty as they have done for generations. You might also see dolphins close up or even a famous writer. Close by, a former industrial site that included the very smelly Bradford Insulation Factory is occupied by riverside dream homes (photo 5). Corkhill Street is the divide between the new and the old, and crossing it one encounters a small weatherboard cottage sitting comfortably opposite a grand heritage-listed house (photo 6) built in 1911 by the Pearse family, owners of the boot factory on the site of what is now Northbank. Next door, you can glimpse the bay window (photo 7) where Bon Scott was wont to practice his drums.
Moving on past restored cottages and some new inserts, one encounters the charming Turton (photos 8,9), another Pearse family dwelling, designed by Talbot Hobbs in the early 1900s, its light-hearted turret picked up by later arrivals (photos 10,11) with questionable results. But this isn’t the end of the Pearse’s contribution to the streetscape: a few metres from Turton is their pièce de résistance, Hillcrest, built in 1901 for Francis Pearse, and described in its Register entry as a “Victorian Italianate style building of the Federation period”. Francis’ widow bequeathed it to the Salvation Army who ran it as a maternity hospital for the next 50 years. Later additions by Regis aged care have obscured its Harvest Road aspect, but its significance to the community, including being the birthplace of at least one local resident, remains intact.
Continuing, one encounters a lovely grassed and shaded children’s playground, then the jarring note of a block of flats (photo 12) constructed in the 1960s in the Councils “populate or perish” period, but now providing the most affordable housing in North Fremantle. Shortly after, the former Bullen’s ice-works is now Dick Cotton Heights public housing development, commemorating the memory of that much loved former Councillor, who lived his entire life in his still-existing house on Pearse Street.
Surviving the crossing of four busy lanes of traffic on Stirling Highway is rewarded by the sight of yet another industrial conversion, the 1932 Weeties Factory, glimpsed behing the memorial (photo 14), whose malty odours signalled to residents that the sea breeze was in (Bradford’s at the opposite end announced the easterly). The Fallen Soldiers Memorial Park (13,14) provides a contemplative resting spot before taking coffee, lunch, a pastry, a glass of wine, a bike repair, a gym workout, a wedding fit-out or a jam session in the Town Centre.
So that’s my street. It has made the transition from Pong Alley to a highly desirable address while keeping its variety of dwellings and their occupants, history and amenity intact. I haven’t touched on the less easily defined qualities of river glimpses and walks, the distant views, the sounds of cricket and footy on the oval, and the gentle chime of the local school bell that replaces the siren serving the same function in the long-gone factories.
But that’s for another chapter.
Gerry MacGill
August 2025.
Gerry MacGill was born in Wallsend, right next to Newcastle, England, up there in the North where ships used to be built, Gerry found his way to Fremantle via Canada, and after a short return to the UK to study in London, never really left. One of the first Fremantle Society candidates to be elected to the Fremantle Council in the 70s, Gerry was one of the new breed dedicated to the saving of Freo as we knew it then and still know it today. He served on Council from 1975 until 1988. Gerry has been equally dedicated over the years to conserving the integrity of North Fremantle, where he has lived since the 70s and remains a stalwart of the North Freo Community Association. If you ask Gerry what he is up to these days, post retirement some years back, he is likely to tell you he is busy being a ‘general public nuisance’ and North Fremantle Precinct Convenor. If you’d like to hear Gerry tell his story in his own words, here’s our 2021 podcast with Gerry.
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