page_title: Swan River (Western Australia)
section_title: Notable features
hierarchical_section_title: Swan River (Western Australia) / History / Notable features
context_page_description: The Swan River is a river in the south west of Western Australia. Its Aboriginal Noongar name is the Derbarl Yerrigan. The river runs through the metropolitan area of Perth, Western Australia's capital and largest city.
context_section_description: A number of features of the river, particularly around the city, have reshaped its profile since European settlement in 1829:
  Claise Brook – named Clause's Brook on early maps, after Frederick Clause.  This was a fresh water creek which emptied the network of natural lakes north of the city.  Before an effective sewerage system was built, it became an open sewer which dumped waste directly into the river for many years during the 1800s and early 1900s.  The area surrounding has been mainly industrial for most of the period of European settlement and it has a long history of neglect.  Since the late 1980s, the East Perth redevelopment has dramatically tidied up the area and works include a landscaped inlet off the river large enough for boats.  The area is now largely residential and the brook exists in name only with the lakes having been either removed or managed by man-made drainage systems.
  Point Fraser – early maps showed this as a major promontory on the northern side of the river west of the Causeway.  It disappeared between 1921 and 1935 when land fill was added on both sides, straightening the irregular foreshore and forming the rectangular 'The Esplanade'.
  The Esplanade – the northern riverbank originally ran close to the base of the escarpment generally a single block width south of St Georges Terrace.  Houses built on the southern side of St Georges Terrace included market gardens which ran to the waters edge.
  Heirisson Islands – a series of mudflats that were slightly more upstream from today's single man-made island which has deep channels on each side.
  Burswood – early in the settlement the Perth flats restricted the passage of all but flat bottom boats travelling between Perth and Guildford. It was decided that a canal be built to bypass these creating Burswood Island. In 1831 it took seven men 107 days to do the work. Once completed, it measured about 280 metres (920 ft) in length by an average top width of nearly 9 metres (30 ft) which tapered to 4 metres (13 ft) at the bottom; the depth varied between nearly one metre and six metres. Further improvements were made in 1834. The area on the south side of the river upstream from the causeway was filled throughout the 1900s, reclaiming an area five-times the area of the Mitchell Interchange/Narrows Bridge works.
  Point Belches – later known as Mill Point, South Perth.  Originally existed as a sandy promontory surrounding a deep semi-circular bay.  This was later named Millers Pool and was eventually filled in and widened to become the present-day South Perth peninsula to which the Narrows Bridge and Kwinana Freeway adjoin.
  Point Lewis (also known as 'One-Tree Point' after a solitary tree that stood on the site for many years) – the northern side of the Narrows Bridge site, and now beneath the interchange.
  Mounts Bay – a modest reclamation was done between 1921 and 1935.  In the 1950s works involving the Narrows Bridge started and in 1957 the bay was dramatically reduced in size with works related to the Mitchell Interchange and the northern approaches to the Narrows.  An elderly Bessie Rischbieth famously protested against the project by standing in the shallows in front of the bulldozers for a whole day in 1957.  She succeeded in halting progress – for that one day.
  Bazaar Terrace/Bazaar Street – in the early days of the settlement this waterfront road between William Street and Mill Street was an important commercial focus with port facilities including several jetties adjoining.  It is now approximately where Mounts Bay Road is today and set well back from the foreshore.  It had a prominent limestone wall and promenade built using material quarried from Mount Eliza.
  River mouth at Fremantle – the harbour was built in the 1890s and the limestone reef blocking the river was removed at the same time, after 70 years of demands. The dredging of the area to build the Harbour effectively changed the river dynamics from a winter flushing flow to a tidal flushing estuary. It was also at this time that the Helena River was dammed as part of C. Y. O'Connor's ambitio
caption: 1909 map showing Heirisson Islands and alignment of the Burswood Island canal
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