ARCHITECTURE
Federation Queen Anne Woodlawn is a single storey house constructed in limestone with a hipped and gable corrugated iron roof. It is a very fine expression of the Federation Queen Anne style.
No. 20 is located on a corner lot that address both Osborne Road and Canning Highway. It is asymmetrically composed with a gabled thrust bay and a part width return hip roofed verandah. The verandah is supported on turned timber posts with a decorative frieze. The half-timbered gable bay features double hung sash windows. The entry is located adjacent the bay under an arch. It is given prominence by stucco finished angled pilasters set above corbels either side of the arch. The arch has a moulded architrave and keystone motif. This element is visually terminated by an entablature and cornice. A further feature of the entry is the bull-nosed slate steps up to the porch level and tessellated tile porch floor. The front door is panelled with stained glass leadlights flanked by stained glass leadlight sidelights. There is a hopper over the door. Windows are generally single pane double hung sashes. Walls are random coursed limestone.
HISTORY
Kaitlyn “This site is also a sacred Noongar site, it’s a shame you haven’t also shared that, the water spring on this land is thousands of years old. Indigenous people have used the spring to train healers within their groups for hundreds of years prior to this house being built - and since it was constructed have been cut off from sacred land.” Correspondence 2023
Constructed in 1898 - of Cottesloe limestone, this stately turn-of-the-century mansion became home to some of Fremantle's most wealthy and powerful merchants was listed on the State's register of heritage places in 2000. Woodlawn was one of a number of substantial homes built in the area to reflect the power and status of the Fremantle elite who had acquired their wealth during the gold boom years of the 1890s and who moved to East Fremantle, where the ground was higher and there was access to the Swan River.
Woodlawn was built in 1898 for Samuel Saphir, who established a large general warehousing business in Fremantle. Saphir died in the same year of Woodlawn's construction and ownership passed to his wife Mary.
Within a few years the property was bought by Ernest Allnutt, director of the Fowler grocery company, and President of the Fremantle Chamber of Commerce. The Allnutt family lived at Woodlawn until 1914, when ownership passed to Herbert Locke, a Fremantle manufacturer who later became Mayor of Fremantle. The Locke family resided at Woodlawn until 1978.
Locke's daughter, Gladys Locke, was a prominent member of the Red Cross and meetings were held at Woodlawn during World War Two. Two bedrooms and the lounge room were used by the Emergency Blood Bank for the remainder of the war.
