76 Stockley Road & Development to the East

76 Stockley Road is a single storey timber and iron house designed in the Federation Bungalow style of architecture. The walls are timber framed and clad with timber weatherboards. The roof is hipped with gablets and clad with corrugated iron. The verandah wraps around the building and is under a broken back corrugated iron roof supported by slender timber posts.

The date of construction of 76 Stockley Road has not been determined as no entry for the lot could be found in the available Bunbury Rate Books prior to 1931. It is thought that the house was built c.1910. In 1931, 76 Stockley Road was owned and occupied by Catherine Johnston. Catherine was still the owner in 1941, though at this time it was a rental property. Tenants included G H Zeplin and a person by the name of Johnstone. By 1951, Kathleen Johnstone was the owner and occupier of House, 76 Stockley Road.

The land to the north of Stockley Road, at Lots 40 and 53, much of which was swamp land remained un-divided, through into the early 1920s.35 In the post-World War One period, T. D. Prosser acquired the ‘mostly swampy’ land between present day Lovegrove Avenue and Stockley Road, and filled it using sand from ’about midway up Stockley Road’.36 After it had settled, the land was sub-divided for sale as residential lots.37 By 1921-22, there were dwellings on at least six of these lots which fronted Stockley Road and more than 10 dwellings in Picton Crescent, whilst the northern portion of Tuart Street, Banksia, Palm and Wattle Streets remained largely vacant land.38 In the inter-war period, Lot 41 was also sub-divided. Named Garvey Place after Miss Garvey, the first residences were built there by the early 1940s.39