Woodside’s Old Olive Trees Live To Fruit Another Day!

What a lovely tree saving story!

At long last, after approval was granted to the Hall & Prior aged care development in Dalgety Street, East Fremantle in 2023, some real action has been happening on the site.

On Tuesday this week and again yesterday, in accordance with an approved landscaping plan, two huge olive trees at the old Woodside Mansion built by one of Fremantle’s ‘merchant princes’, William Dalgety Moore in the late 19th century, and believed to have been planted by him then, around 130 years ago, were relocated from their original location at the northern, old entrance to Woodside, to the western side of the development site, where a new entrance will be constructed.

The job of relocating the trees has been undertaken expertly by the Arbor Centre assisted this week by General Crane Services, including the amazingly talented crane operators and brothers, Dave and Wayne Mancini. As it transpires Dave and Wayne were both born at Woodside when it still operated as a maternity hospital, as were three of Dave’s four daughters!

Nearby resident Joanne Taggart was on hand yesterday to capture this historic moment and all the impressive action and recorded these lovely video interviews with brothers Wayne Mancini and Dave Mancini about their links with Woodside and the challenges presented by this job.

The task of relocating the two olive trees commenced about a year ago with preparatory works by the Arbor Centre team. Today saw great care taken in the actual removal from their original locations and replanting in the new locations.

Here’s a gallery of Joanne’s photographs of some of the action.

And here’s a great pic of the Arbor Centre team hamming it up for the camera!