Built on the foundations of the historic Freshwater Bay School, the Freshwater Bay Museum in Claremont, Perth is an important marker of cultural history for the area. It was first opened as the Claremont Museum in 1975, and holds a variety of artefacts, photographs and documents which make up the tapestry of the region's local history.
The Boat Shed holds a treasure trove of memorabilia on boat building and boating on the famous Swan River from the 1900s, as well as the tales of the early pearl divers off the coast of Western Australia. As well as traditional forms of history, there are collections of oral histories and personal accounts from citizens of the Freshwater Bay and Claremont areas, from the end of the 19th century until the present day.
It's not just the exhibitions that tell a good story, though – the building itself has had a rich, multiplicitous life, having first functioned as a school, a place of worship, a boarding house for young men known as the 'Appy 'Ome, a police station and later, police quarters. If these walls could talk, right?