Guildford State Heritage Listing

Guildford Municipal Council 1944, outside Guildford Town Hall. Guildford’s history of local government stretches back to 1839, and was the first local council in WA to which two women councillors were elected at the same time. Cr Miss Helena King is on the left, Cr Dr Merab Taubman is on the right. Photo Swan City Library Local History Collections.

The Heritage Council of WA recently received public submissions on its draft listing of ‘Guildford Historic Town’ on the State Register of Heritage Places.  This was the Council’s first potential listing of a whole historic living town, although Fremantle’s West End urban precinct was listed in July last year.   The proposed listing is especially relevant to historians because the key heritage values are mainly historic values, and the nomination documentation tries to analyse the place as a whole historic and cultural landscape rather than as a collection of structures in a shared location.  The Heritage Council’s Register Committee will consider amendments to the nomination documentation arising from the public submissions ‘in the near future’.