Stirk Cottage

Visit Kalamunda’s first heritage listed cottage, with its distinct architecture & household goods made from recycled materials.

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This 1881 hand-built cottage was the family home of early hills settlers Frederick and Elizabeth Stirk, and their nine children.
It was the first dwelling in Kalamunda locality and quite isolated. Materials for wall framework, roof and floor were found on the Stirk’s ten acre bush property using their own labour with simple tools.
The first walls are an excellent example of “wattle and daub” technique where clay mud was pressed into latticed sticks between the frames and smoothed. An inner wall cut -out shows this. The walls were coated with limewash. The roof was first covered with axe cut shingles (wood tiles) from sheoak wood and later improved with jarrah wood.
The Stirks grew strawberries for sale, whilst their orchard of fruit trees became established. Grapevines and vegetables thrived, using water from the creek on their land. Later the surrounding area became a dairy farm and finally was allocated as parkland by Kalamunda Shire. It is now known as Stirk Park.