Jump to content
Main menu
Main menu
move to sidebar
hide
Navigation
Main page
Recent changes
Random page
Help about MediaWiki
Special pages
Niidae Wiki
Search
Search
Appearance
Create account
Log in
Personal tools
Create account
Log in
Pages for logged out editors
learn more
Contributions
Talk
Editing
Swan River (Western Australia)
(section)
Page
Discussion
English
Read
Edit
View history
Tools
Tools
move to sidebar
hide
Actions
Read
Edit
View history
General
What links here
Related changes
Page information
Appearance
move to sidebar
hide
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
===Notable features=== A number of features of the river, particularly around the city, have reshaped its profile since European settlement in 1829: [[File:Perth Water c.1909.png|thumb|right|1909 map showing Heirisson Islands and alignment of the Burswood Island canal]] *[[Claise Brook]] β named ''Clause's Brook'' (after [[Frederick Clause]]) on early maps. This was a fresh water creek which emptied the network of natural lakes north of the city. Before an effective sewerage system was built, it became an open sewer which dumped waste directly into the river for many years during the 1800s and early 1900s. The area surrounding has been mainly industrial for most of the period of European settlement and it has a long history of neglect. Since the late 1980s, the East Perth redevelopment has dramatically tidied up the area and works include a landscaped inlet off the river large enough for boats. The area is now largely residential and the ''brook'' exists in name only with the lakes having been either removed or managed by artificial drainage systems. *Point Fraser β early maps showed this as a major promontory on the northern side of the river west of the Causeway. It disappeared between 1921 and 1935 when land fill was added on both sides, straightening the irregular foreshore and forming the rectangular 'The Esplanade'. *The Esplanade β the northern riverbank originally ran close to the base of the escarpment generally a single block width south of St Georges Terrace. Houses built on the southern side of St Georges Terrace included market gardens which ran to the waters edge. *Heirisson Islands β a series of mudflats that were slightly more upstream from today's single artificial island which has deep channels on each side. *Burswood β early in the settlement the Perth flats restricted the passage of all but flat bottom boats travelling between Perth and Guildford. It was decided that a [[Burswood Canal|canal]] be built to bypass these creating Burswood Island. In 1831 it took seven men 107 days to do the work. Once completed, it measured about {{convert|280|m}} in length by an average top width of nearly {{convert|9|m}} which tapered to {{convert|4|m}} at the bottom; the depth varied between nearly {{convert|1|and|6|m}}. Further improvements were made in 1834. The area on the south side of the river upstream from the causeway was filled throughout the 1900s, reclaiming an area five times the area of the Mitchell Interchange and Narrows Bridge works. *Point Belches β later known as Mill Point, South Perth. Originally existed as a sandy promontory surrounding a deep semi-circular bay. This was later named Millers Pool and was eventually filled in and widened to become the present-day South Perth peninsula to which the Narrows Bridge and Kwinana Freeway adjoin. *Point Lewis (also known as ''One-tree Point'' after a solitary tree that stood on the site for many years){{snd}}the northern side of the Narrows Bridge site, and now beneath the interchange. *Mounts Bay β a modest reclamation was done between 1921 and 1935. In the 1950s works involving the Narrows Bridge started and in 1957 the bay was dramatically reduced in size with works related to the Mitchell Interchange and the northern approaches to the Narrows. An elderly [[Bessie Rischbieth]] famously protested against the project by standing in the shallows in front of the bulldozers for a whole day in 1957. She succeeded in halting progress{{snd}}for that one day. *Bazaar Terrace/Bazaar Street β in the early days of the settlement this waterfront road between William Street and Mill Street was an important commercial focus with port facilities including several jetties adjoining. It is now approximately where Mounts Bay Road is today and set well back from the foreshore. It had a prominent limestone wall and promenade built using material quarried from Mount Eliza. *River mouth at Fremantle β the harbour was built in the 1890s and the limestone reef blocking the river was removed at the same time, after 70 years of demands. The dredging of the area to build the harbour effectively changed the river dynamics from a winter flushing flow to a tidal flushing estuary. It was also at this time that the Helena River was dammed as part of [[C. Y. O'Connor]]'s ambitious and successful plan to provide water to the [[Kalgoorlie, Western Australia|Kalgoorlie]] Goldfields.
Summary:
Please note that all contributions to Niidae Wiki may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here.
You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see
Encyclopedia:Copyrights
for details).
Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)
Search
Search
Editing
Swan River (Western Australia)
(section)
Add topic