HISTORIC sewer vents around Perth will be preserved with heritage protection, but a grand Tudor-style mansion in King’s Park wasn’t as fortunate, with bulldozers due to close on the century-old house in the next few days.

The vents scattered around the CBD were installed between 1911 and 1928 and stand between 11 and 16 metres tall with decorative cast-iron bases. They were built “to assist in reducing odours associated with the completion of Perth’s new deep sewerage system” but apparently were pretty crappy at their job.

They’re considered significant as they provide “rare evidence of the earliest establishment of a deep sewerage system,” and they’re a small surviving example of a once-common piece of infrastructure. They also hark back to a time when “decorative but functional cast-iron work was used for these items of public infrastructure”.

In a more substantial heritage listing by the Perth city council this week, the old “Phineas Seeligson’s City Loan Office” building at 143 Barrack Street will soon be permanently listed on the state register.

Considered a “fine example of federation Romanesque architecture [with] a high degree of aesthetic value with its ornamental facade and high pitched gable… the place is the only purpose-built pawn broker known to exist in Western Australia”. Designed by WA’s first born-and-trained architect Henry (Harry) Stirling Trigg, the 1894 building “was constructed for pawnbroker Phineas Seeligson, a philanthropist and prominent leader in the Jewish community in WA”.

The PCC unanimously endorsed the listing and sent it back to the WA heritage council for the final fiddly bits.

by DAVID BELL