Ashfield, Western Australia

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Ashfield is a residential suburb of Perth, Western Australia, located within the Town of Bassendean. The suburb is located along the Swan River. The Midland Railway line passes through the area and is serviced by the Ashfield railway station.

The housing was originally established as small collection of railway houses near the train line. In the late 1950s early 1960s the area experienced a small boom of housing (400 houses) mostly built by the then State Housing Commission partly funded by the sale of half the properties to individuals. In the late 1960s the State Housing started to reaquire some of those properties. During the late 1990s the suburb underwent a revamp driven by the State Housing Commission, now called Homeswest. This occurred in conjunction with the infill sewage project which was created to convert Perth homes from septic tanks and leach drains to mains sewage. They bulldozed houses on land where they had adjoining properties. For every three houses removed five to seven were built in their place. The majority of these were sold off to low income and first home buyers.

The Department of Housing and Works (incorporating Homeswest) still owns about 22% of the houses (as opposed to their stated goal of 10%), and uses their housing stock as subsidised rental accommodation.

The deepest point of the Swan River upstream from Melville waters occurs in Ashfield. It was in this area the furtherest upstream recording of sharks occurred with one being caught in the late 1970s.