Chockerup Inn (also known as Chorkerup Inn) was a roadside inn on the

mail coach A mail coach is a stagecoach that is used to deliver mail. In Great Britain, Ireland, and Australia, they were built to a General Post Office-approved design operated by an independent contractor to carry long-distance mail for the Post Office. ...

route between Albany and

Mount Barker, Western Australia Mount Barker is a town and Suburbs and localities (Australia), locality on Albany Highway and the administrative centre of the Shire of Plantagenet in the Great Southern (Western Australia), Great Southern region of Western Australia. At the 202 ...

, that was built in 1854 and closed in 1889 when the Great Southern Railway opened.

Establishment

The inn was established as a simple

wattle-and-daub Wattle and daub is a composite building method in which a woven lattice of wooden strips called " wattle" is "daubed" with a sticky material usually made of some combination of wet soil, clay, sand, and straw. Wattle and daub has been used for ...

hut in 1854, when the mail route between Albany and

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

began running. The mail coach was drawn by horses, and Chockerup Inn was the first place to change horses or have a meal after leaving Albany, being a couple of hours journey (around 15 miles) from the port town.

1870s

Gates Fremantle Prison executed by sergeant J Nelson

In the 1870s, Joseph Nelson, one of the

Royal Sappers and Miners The British Army during the Victorian era served through a period of great technological and social change. Queen Victoria ascended the throne in 1837, and died in 1901. Her long reign was marked by the steady expansion and consolidation of th ...

who had come to

Fremantle Fremantle () () is a port city in Western Australia located at the mouth of the Swan River (Western Australia), Swan River in the metropolitan area of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth. The Western Australi ...

in 1851 to help build Fremantle Prison and other public works, took over Chockerup Inn. He was a blacksmith who had led in the construction of the iron gates at Fremantle Prison in 1855, and it would have been useful to have a blacksmith on the road to help with shoeing horses and repairing coaches and wagons.

1880s

In 1884 James and Emma Gorman took over, and they ran the inn until it closed in 1889, when the railway opened and travellers stopped passing by Chockerup. The inn thrived in this period, with many visitors, and Emma Gorman provided people with generous meals at any time of day, as reported both in the local newspaper and by visiting dignitaries like the Lady Brassey, a best-selling travel author of the time. Lord Brassey noted that they gave the horses a feed at Chockerup Inn.

After closing

After the

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

opened in 1889, Chockerup Inn was abandoned due to lack of traffic. By 1928 only a few bricks remained.

References

External links

{{Authority control, qid=Q131849510 Pubs in Western Australia 1854 establishments in Australia Hotels in Albany, Western Australia Coaching inns