Who lives in a pineapple down in Maylands? John Gregory, since you ask. But we’ll come back to him in moment. The Pineapple Estate was the name given to much of Swan Location Y, as shown on the survey below:

(SRO Cons 3869 Item Swan 145)

In 1895, all 810 acres of Pineapple Estate was sold to developers Gold Estates of Australia, who divided it into Maylands and Inglewood, sadly dropping the far more lovely name of Pineapple forever (Western Mail 9 March 1939). So where did this name come from?

While Maylands had some settlement in the early colony, the next place of note from Perth was West Guildford, now called Bassendean. John Gregory was allocated Swan Location Y, and he had established the Pineapple Inn by 1833, which served as the sole resting place between Perth and West Guildford. But isn’t Pineapple a weird name for a public house?

Surprisingly, no, although it’s not too common. The presence of carved pineapples on gateposts and doorways of older houses, as well as their use as decorative motifs on furniture, has a historical significance rooted in the symbol of friendship and hospitality. When the Spaniards encountered pineapples in the West Indies, they named the fruit ‘pina’ due to its resemblance to a giant pinecone. It is said that the Indigenous peoples used the pineapple as a symbol of friendship, so the concept of the fruit as a symbol of friendship was brought back to Spain.

This custom then spread to England and carved or painted pineapples placed near entrances of homes became a tradition, signalling to visitors that they could expect a friendly reception, making the pineapple a widely used motif in decorative arts. There are other Pineapple Hotels, including one in London and one near the Gabba which has been trading since 1864. (It should be said that the Queensland pub may be simply named after local pineapple plantations, but the London one certainly wasn’t.)

While we don’t have a description of the building, we know it had a “splendid moist-land garden, well stocked with fruit trees”. Which sounds delightful, if you like moist-land gardens.

However, our Pineapple Inn was doomed when construction of the Causeway and a better road on the other bank of the Swan River led to a decline in traffic on Guildford Road. Consequently, it only survived until the 1840s. That is, it stopped trading as a public house in the 1840s, because the building was around long after that. But where exactly was it?

While this is not exactly a mystery on the scale of the location of Atlantis, a number of solutions have been proposed, none of which are exactly right. In one sense, there is little mystery, since the pub was in Location Y, in modern-day Maylands. What has led people astray is Gregory’s description of its location:

(Gazette 23 November 1839)

Saying it was on the Guildford Road means that some people have taken this literally, and an old article in the Mt Lawley Society archives proposes that the Pineapple was on the site of Williamson’s Garage:

(Google)

It was not here. The Heritage Council locates it at 88-90 Guildford Road, which is closer:

(Google again)

But the Pineapple Inn did not stand on Guildford Road, but near Guildford Road. Perhaps had it been located better, it might have survived longer even with less traffic. But the building was still there in 1885, because the description of Swan Location Y depended on measurements from the centre of the old pub. To be precise, the southwest boundary of Location Y was 12 chains from the inn and the southeast boundary was 30 chains from the inn. We could just get a survey out and find it with a ruler, but there is no need.

The Pineapple Inn is shown clearly on an 1841 survey. It would have been at the west of Bardon Park in Maylands, just above the ‘cliff’ there. The spot can easily be seen from the footpath by the side of the Swan.

Roughly the location of the Pineapple Inn. Or perhaps a little to the west at the back of 88-90 Guildford Road (as sort-of suggested by the Heritage Council)

So the mystery is solved. Although most people didn’t know there was a mystery. But we solved it anyway,