The Proclamation Tree

The fig has grown over the monument it shares its corner with. Under the canopy stands the William Marmion Memorial, a Celtic cross unveiled in 1902, now partly hidden by a tree that was already twelve years in the ground when it arrived. The planting is dated to the afternoon. On 21 October 1890 Governor Sir William Robinson put this Moreton Bay fig in to mark the granting of self-government to the Colony of Western Australia, and both the state heritage record and Fremantle's own local history give the same date, which makes the tree 136 years old and one of the few on this map whose birthday is known. It went in at the corner of Adelaide, Parry and Queen Victoria Streets, the point where everyone entering Fremantle's main streets passed by, and it has held that corner ever since. The corner is now a small park hemmed in by three roads. It sits on the state Register of Heritage Places, was classified by the National Trust in 1980 and is on the City of Fremantle's heritage list. What nobody has published is a girth figure, and a fig of this age tends to have an interesting one. If you take a tape to it, tell us the number. Fremantle is roughly half an hour by train from central Perth, and the tree is a 700 metre walk from the station.