Highgate history: Hyde Park, Sacred Heart and the hill named after London

Highgate is one of Perth’s smallest inner suburbs, but it carries a long history, from the wetlands that mattered to the Whadjuk Noongar people to the estates, churches and parks of the 1890s.

How Highgate got its name

In 1874 surveyor Charles Crossland named the area Highgate Hill after his birthplace near London.

Before the suburb

The City of Vincent describes the area as part of a chain of seasonal wetlands of practical and spiritual importance to the Whadjuk Noongar people. Hyde Park, known to Noongar people as Boodjamooling, was a main campsite, and inHerit records it as an Aboriginal camping ground before and during the early years of European settlement.

How it grew

Highgate was built in a run of subdivisions in the 1890s: Mount Heart Estate, Bulwer Park and Lord Street Estate in 1895, Woodley Park in 1897 and Highgate Hill in 1900. The Catholic Church acquired the Mount Heart land and Bishop Matthew Gibney oversaw its subdivision.

Highgate School opened in 1895, trams ran along Beaufort Street from 1900, and shops lined Beaufort Street by about 1905.

Places that tell the story

Hyde Park was set aside for public gardens in 1897 and renamed after London’s Hyde Park in 1899. Its fountain dates from 1901 and its jacarandas were planted between 1921 and 1923.

The Sacred Heart group of church buildings began with a monastery opened in 1899, a school whose foundation stone was laid in 1914, and a church completed in 1928.

The Lincoln Street ventilation stack is a 1941 Art Deco sewerage tower that was also used for communications during the Second World War.

The Queens Hotel on Beaufort Street dates from 1897.

Highgate today

After the Second World War, Southern European migrant families settled in Highgate’s Federation streets. The City of Vincent records that in 2021 more than half of Highgate’s dwellings were flats or apartments, far above the Western Australian average, which makes it one of Perth’s genuine apartment suburbs alongside its period houses.

More about Highgate

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

Sources

• City of Vincent: Highgate history
• City of Vincent: history
• inHerit: Hyde Park
• inHerit: Sacred Heart group

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