Attadale history: a Scottish estate name, the river foreshore and Santa Maria College

Attadale was named in 1896 by its landowner after a village on Loch Carron in Scotland. Its story runs through the river foreshore, a 1920s subdivision and two Catholic institutions.

How Attadale got its name

Landgate records that the land was granted to Archibald Butler in 1830 and bought in 1896 by Sir Alexander Percival Matheson. He is believed to have named it after Attadale, a small town on the eastern shore of Loch Carron in Scotland, not far from Applecross. The City of Melville gives the same origin and adds that Attadale was the first subdivision of Matheson’s Melville Water Park Estate, sold as the Attadale Town Site Estate.

Landgate notes that Attadale had an approved postal boundary by 1955 and was gazetted as a locality on 3 September 1982.

Before the suburb

The City of Melville describes Attadale as part of the Wadjuk Beeliar culture area, used for seasonal movement, hunting and ceremony. The river foreshore gave fish, shellfish and birds, and was a favoured camping place, while people mined quartz in the area of what is now Burke Drive. Alfred Cove Reserve, which takes in the Alfred Cove and Attadale foreshores, is listed with Aboriginal occupation as one of its historic themes.

Alfred Cove is named after Alfred Waylen, who held land here as one of the early settlers from 1834 to 1854.

How it grew

A heritage record for two Norfolk Island pines on a street verge dates the subdivision of Attadale for housing to the 1920s, and the trees survive from the street planting of that time.

In 1938 the Sisters of Mercy founded Santa Maria College beside the river, with 60 boarders and 13 day students. Plans for a chapel were put on hold in 1939 because of the war, and the Sisters used a convent room instead until the chapel was finished in 1955.

The Catholic parish followed. On 18 February 1954 Archbishop Prendiville appointed the Jesuits as chaplains to the college and to the new Attadale parish. A parish school opened early in 1955 in a temporary hut at Point Walter under the Sisters of Mercy. Its building was blessed on 27 March 1955 under the title of St Joseph Pignatelli, and on 18 April the 50 enrolled children moved in. A church was blessed on 9 December 1962. The Jesuits gave up plans for a boys’ college in 1961, and their land was sold and subdivided. Campion Crescent and Loyola Way recall them.

Thomas Burke gave $4,000 towards Burke Drive along the foreshore and proposed that the reserve beside it be named Troy Park after W.F. Troy, a Minister for Lands.

Places that tell the story

The Santa Maria College administration building and chapel on Moreing Road are on the City of Melville’s Heritage List. Attadale Reserve and Troy Park on Burke Drive are on the City’s heritage inventory, along with a pair of Norfolk Island pines and The Cove, a former house at 568 Canning Highway.

Alfred Cove Reserve was entered on the Register of the National Estate in 1996. The parish replaced its 1962 church, intended as temporary, with a new church in May 2018.

Attadale today

The 2021 Census counted 6,638 people in Attadale. Its foreshore reserves line the same river edge the City describes as a Noongar camping place.

More about Attadale

For what Attadale is like to live in now, read our Attadale suburb profile. If you own a property in Attadale and are thinking about selling, start with buyers for your property.

Sources

• Landgate: Perth and surrounds suburb names (archived 2022)
• City of Melville: City profile, demographics, suburbs and boundaries
• City of Melville: Parks and reserves namesakes
• inHerit: Trees, Pine, Attadale
• inHerit: Alfred Cove Reserve
• inHerit: The Cove (fmr) House
• City of Melville: Local Government Inventory 2014 place records summary
• City of Melville: Heritage List 2019
• Santa Maria College
• Santa Maria College: The chapel’s history
• Attadale Catholic Parish: Parish history
• ABS 2021 Census QuickStats: Attadale

Top image: Alfred Cove Nature Reserve, Attadale, 2020. Photo: Calistemon, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Dates and names are drawn from the sources above. Where sources differ, we have said so or given an approximate date.

By Key Performance Real Estate, 338 Beaufort Street, Perth