Alfred Cove
ALFRED COVE
The suburb Alfred Cove is named after Alfred Waylen. It is thought that Point Waylen is also named after him, which was used predominantly for bushland grazing.
Alfred Waylen (1805-1856) had bought the location in 1842 when Lionel Lukin (1801-1863) mortgaged his holding and failed to meet repayments. Waylen from Capetown had an inn and was Director of the Agricultural Society in 1841.
John Wellard (1825-1885) bought the property from Waylen in 1856 for grazing purposes. Wellard was a surveyor, storekeeper, and hotelkeeper in Fremantle.
The following notes have been prepared from research carried out over the years by members of the Melville History Society.
The aboriginal name for the Point Waylen foreshore area is believed to be Marradungup which was a meeting place and camping ground for the traditional custodians and the many visiting clan groups. There were abundant food resources of fish, waterfowl, shellfish, reptiles, vegetable roots and bulbs.
Alfred Cove and Point Waylen are both named after Alfred Waylen, who received two large grants of land in the 1830s. Earlier the bay had been known as Frenchman's Bay from 1801 when the French ship Naturaliste landed there during their scientific and exploratory voyage. Alfred Waylen took up land in 1830 and ran cattle on his property for many years as did subsequent owners W.D. Atwell and Arthur Groves. Atwell was the original owner of Atwell House and its associated dairy. In 1919, Groves established a successful dairy, running approximately 100 cows on land extending along the river from Alfred Cove to Point Waylen.
It was not until the 1890s that land in the district was first subdivided into residential lots and in the 1930s the majority of land surrounding Alfred Cove was subdivided for suburban development. Fifty three acres of land was set aside along the foreshore from Attadale Jetty to Alfred Cove for recreational purposes.
Between 1952 and 1964 the foreshore area from Tompkins Park to Cunningham Street was used as a public refuse landfill site. The tip closed after 8 years of operation, creating almost 40 acres of recreational land on half a mile of foreshore. Between 1965 and 1969 the tip site was transferred to the Attadale foreshore. Although unpopular with Attadale residents and resulted in the loss of prawn beds and natural vegetation, it opened extensive views over Melville water.
Melville's first major rubbish tip until the 1950s was next to the Fremantle Cemetery's eastern end, on the corner of Stock and High Roads.
In 1958, a radio transmitter facility for Perth Airport was constructed at Point Waylen. This facility was managed by the Civil Aviation Authority as an integral component of Perth airport's navigational guidance system.
In 1975 the WA Department of Fisheries noted that Alfred Cove was the one remaining section of natural foreshore on the Swan River and was vital to the greenshanks which have been known to travel the 12,000km from Siberia to Western Australia in only 75 days. The saltmarsh is the most extensive area in a relatively natural state in the Swan River. The Alfred Cove flats are comprised of shallow unmodified fossil deposit of seashells 4000 to 6100 years old. The deposit records levels reached by the rise in the sea 20 to 6 thousand years ago, following the last ice age.