COLIN NICHOL and STEVE GRANT weigh in on behalf of a Fremantle island of history

NUMBER 2 Phillimore Street is so obvious as to be almost invisible; walkers and drivers pass and circle with barely a glance.

It’s been an essential part of Fremantle’s infrastructure for much of its 119 years, although recently the city’s netherworld of night people has apparently decided on a somewhat less glamorous incantation — a squat.

Scattered bricks and a large hole in the wall tell the story — gain entry and there’s another place for the homeless to sleep.

The outer bricks have been smashed out, but the determined efforts of the itinerants was met with an interior brick wall and for some reason, they failed in smashing through. Perhaps interrupted. The standard Fremantle graffiti is inevitably represented.

The now-humble weighbridge at the entrance to Victoria Quay was a key part of port business, a busy crossing point for goods to and from the harbour. Large sections of the outer wall are original, with other parts showing poorly executed restoration and there are the scars of the years and other deliberate damage all around the hut.

It is a sad old age for the historic building and it deserves much better. And it might just get it, with the council last year receiving a development application to turn the little brick building into a small bar/cafe. The council approved the lease in January 2015, but the proponents have been working their way through a tangle of red tape to get a liquor licence approved.

Mayor Brad Pettitt says the cafe/bar will be going out for public consultation soon, and the council will then work with the proprietor to “sensitively adapt” the heritage-listed building.

Commissioned by the late 19th century Municipality of Fremantle, it now sits on a gazetted reserve, part of the West End Conservation Area, within the municipal heritage inventory and town planning scheme area.

The plaque by the door tells nothing of the many human stories it represents over so long a period of the city’s history, but notes some of its own.

In a changing configuration over the years, the first small timber building and weighbridge of 1897 received a new 10-ton scales in 1906, then in 1921 termites dictated the building be replaced with the present brick and iron one. The current weighbridge was installed in 1924, the area enlarged in 1934 allowing the adjoining building to be added, the present scales being installed in 1956.

Then, no longer financially viable, it closed in 1984. It may more recently be remembered for its short other lives as an earthenware pot shop, storage space, a tourist office and scooter hire centre. At one stage the council considered turning it into public toilets.

While a small building, with its weighing platform still driven over every day and the huge Avery scales brooding on its memories inside, it represents a disproportionately big part of Fremantle’s story and this speck on a map of industrial archaeological value was the subject of a 1999 plan financed by the WA heritage council, recommending conservation.

The only known such building in Fremantle, it is within what is anticipated to become the main civic square entry to the Fremantle Waterfront Project. Its importance increases inversely proportional to its decline. For many decades it paid its way as a good source of income for the city and council, which undertook to be responsible for maintenance.