Hampton Road Reserve

Significance

The Hampton Road Reserve is significant for its historical relationship with the Prison, and for its role in providing a setting to the Prison on its east side. It makes a significant contribution to the aesthetic significance of the Prison. The reserve offers a high level of visibility in the local context to the Prison and its east perimeter wall.

Save for some generally limited plantings, in the reserve proper and on the median strip adjoining the road, the view of the wall from the reserve is unimpeded and powerful, and shows the wall for all its length, height and materiality with no interruptions or breaks. This view of the east perimeter wall has drawn attention to the presence of the Prison since the 1850s.

The reserve area has additionally provided a physical buffer to the urban development of Fremantle to the east, which has continued apace since the establishment of the Prison. In terms of historical archaeology, the surviving shafts, drives and bores under the reserve are a significant component of the water supply system established in the adjoining Prison. There is also high potential for evidence of three early cottages to survive in the reserve, at its northern end.

Those parts of the Hampton Road Reserve that are of exceptional significance are as follows:

Hampton Road Reserve in its entirety in terms of its role as an external sterile zone and for its contribution to the setting to the east Prison perimeter wall
archaeological remains of the convict-era Warders’ Cottages

Those parts of the Hampton Road Reserve that are of considerable significance are as follows:

the system of shafts, drives and bores beneath the Hampton Road Reserve, built during the 1890s and into the early twentieth century

No parts of the Hampton Road Reserve have been assessed as being of some significance.

Those parts of the Hampton Road Reserve that are of little or no significance are as follows:

carparking
plantings and vegetation

Principles

PRINCIPLE 88: The austere character and historical setting of the Hampton Road Reserve, on the east side of the Prison, should be retained and conserved. This includes retaining the grassed surface and removing the sparse tree planting.

PRINCIPLE 89: The Hampton Road Reserve should be kept free of any new structures, other than minor or temporary elements which support and/or enhance Fremantle Prison operations, promotion or interpretation.

PRINCIPLE 90: The car parking currently located in the northern end of the reserve should not be expanded and should preferably be removed. New car parking should not be introduced to any other location in the reserve.

PRINCIPLE 91: As a general principle no new plantings should be introduced to the reserve and adjoining median strip, in order to help maintain an open character for the location. It is possible that low plantings may be appropriate as part of a considered heritage interpretation response to early features in this location including interpretation of the pre-European landscape, but any such proposal would need to be carefully assessed for potential adverse heritage impacts.

PRINCIPLE 92: Given the historical presence of early cottages in the northern half of the reserve, and the survival of shafts, drives and bores associated with the water supply system established in the adjoining Prison, archaeological investigations should precede any works in the reserve area.

PRINCIPLE 93: Interpretation of the Hampton Road Reserve should address its historical role as a sterile zone for the Prison, a physical buffer to urban Fremantle, the site of early cottages associated with the Prison, the construction and role of the sand dyke, the survival of the water supply system components, and its later integration into the Prison reserve. This location may also be appropriate for the interpretation of Indigenous heritage values.

Structures & Spaces Actions

ACTION 45: Continue to use and enhance historical interpretation of the reserve.

ACTION 46: Remove the carparking presently occupying the northern part of the reserve.

ACTION 47: Investigate the potential archaeological resource within the reserve through desktop research and geophysical survey (e.g. Ground Penetrating Radar).