The FDA Carstens Memorial is located on a traffic island in the centre of Macrossan Street, Port Douglas, in the principal business precinct between Grant and Wharf Streets. The monument is positioned approximately 90 metres from Grant Street and 190 metres from Wharf Street. The island that it stands on is approximately 10 metres x 6 metres.
The memorial comprises a square base with truncated corners, square pedestal, a shaft in the form of a Grecian column, and bust, all in Carrara marble, and stands approximately 5 metres high to the top of the bust. The whole rests on a concrete plinth.
The pedestal features a lion head and leaded inscriptions on each of the four sides. On the northern face the inscription reads: A vigorous advocate of the construction of the Mossman Tramway. Chairman of the Port Douglas Hospital Committee. 1892-1893. Above the lion head on this face is the lettering: Carstens Memorial. The lettering on the southern face reads FDA Carstens. Arrived in Port Douglas 1886. Visited his native land 1899-1903. The inscription above the eastern lion head reads IN MEMORIAM and below the lion head: FDA Carstens. Born 9 August, 1838. Died 20 September 1906. The western face reads above the lion head FDA Carstens, and below the lion head Elected to the Douglas Divisional board 1888, 1891-1893, Chairman 1893-1898, member of the Douglas Shire Council 1903-1906. Below the northern and southern lion heads are semi-circular wreaths. The monument originally incorporated a fountain with water flowing from the mouths of the lion head on the eastern and western sides. Below each of these lion heads was a small marble bowl, since removed.
On the eastern side of the base is the inscription Erected and presented to the Douglas Shire Council by his loving wife, Pauline Carstens. On two sides in small lettering at the base is the lettering Melrose and Fenwick and on another corner Townsville.
The column above the pedestal comprises a small base, shaft and capital. On the base are carved garlands of leaves, flowers [including hibiscus and daisies] and bows. The shaft of the column is fluted and features wreaths and crossed banding, and the capital is in extrapolated Ionic style. Above the capital rests a life-size bust of FDA Carstens.
","history":"The memorial was erected c1907-08 to honour Friederich Detleip Andreas Carstens, a Port Douglas publican and former Port Douglas Divisional Board Chairman. It was commissioned and paid for by his widow, Pauline Carstens, and presented c1907-08 to Douglas Shire Council as a public memorial drinking fountain. The work was carried out by the prominent Townsville-based monumental masonry firm of Melrose and Fenwick, who designed, constructed and supplied memorials and headstones throughout North Queensland in the first half of the 20th century.
FDA Carstens was born on 9 August 1838 in Olpinitz, Denmark, to wealthy parents. He was well educated, attending the Heidelberg University in Germany. As a young man he developed health problems, and decided to immigrate to Queensland to a more congenial climate. In 1866 he commenced business in Brisbane as a general merchant. He then moved with his first wife Catherine to Dalby and built a hotel there. He also operated a successful butchery in Dalby, buying out his competitor. At Dalby he commenced his career in public life, being elected a member of the municipal council. Continued ill health prompted a move to North Queensland, where he purchased a hotel at Herberton, on the Atherton Tablelands, prior to moving to Port Douglas in 1886 where he purchased the Exchange Hotel. The Exchange was the leading hotel in Port Douglas; the only two-storeyed hotel in town, boasting the only underground cellar. The Carstens resided on the premises.
FDA Carstens very quickly engaged in local politics. He served on the Douglas Divisional Board in 1888 and again 1891-1898, and on the Douglas Shire Council 1903-06. From 1893 to 1898 he served as the Chairman of the Douglas Divisional Board and was instrumental in the establishment of the Mossman Central Mill and the Port Douglas and Mossman tramway. Fellow councillors almost unanimously regarded Carstens as fair minded, energetic and having the best interests of the district at heart.
In 1895, as Divisional Board Chairman, Carstens stridently advocated for the tramway, extracting a loan of £22,000 from a reluctant government. The construction of a tramway between Mossman and Port Douglas serviced both communities, and allowed expansion of the district's agricultural and sugar industry. Carstens was actively involved in other community organizations, and served as Chairman of the Port Douglas Hospital Committee in 1892-1893. His personal interest in horse racing led him to become secretary of the Jockey Club.
Carstens' wife Catherine died at age 56 in 1895, and in 1897 he married Pauline Pratt. There were no children from either marriage.
Between 1899 until 1903 Carstens journeyed overseas, touring Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Denmark. Upon his return he served on the Douglas Shire Council until his death, after a long illness, in 1906.
After Carsten's death his widow commissioned North Queensland's leading monumental masonry firm Melrose and Fenwick Ltd. of Townsville, to construct a public monument to honour the memory of her husband. No expense was spared when she ordered the memorial. It was made of imported Italian Carrara marble, and featured carved lion heads on all four sides, two of which were drinking founts, and a life-size bust of her husband. The structure was made in block sections with pipes inserted into the base and then shipped and reassembled in Port Douglas. Mrs Carstens presented it to the Douglas Shire Council c1907-1908 and it was erected in the centre of the main street of Port Douglas, opposite the Exchange Hotel.
Around the same time Pauline Carstens also erected a very ornate and expensive gravestone on her husband's grave. It is the only grave in the Port Douglas cemetery to have a small marble boarder surrounding the plot with a jacquard marble and granite covering to the plot. The headstone is a large, detailed and ornate angel carved from Carrara marble.
In 1911, five years after Carstens' death, a cyclone crossed the coast causing extensive damage to the buildings of Port Douglas, including the top floor of the Exchange Hotel. Amidst the chaos, the monument stood firm and unscathed. Upon reconstruction the Exchange Hotel second story was never re-built.
Very little is known about the circumstance of presenting the memorial to the Douglas Shire Council or the arrangement made by Pauline Carstens for the memorial to be placed in a public thoroughfare. Douglas Shire Council minute books reputedly were destroyed in a fire c1908 and again by the 1911 cyclone. There are very few remaining copies of the local newspapers, the Port Douglas and Mossman Record or the Post Douglas and Mossman Gazette, for the period between 1905 and 1910.
By the late 1960s, the marble bowls beneath the founts had been removed and the fountain no longer functioned. The late 20th century North Queensland tourism boom, however, sparked renewed interest in the conservation of the memorial. In 1999 the Douglas Shire Council, in collaboration with the Port Douglas Restoration Society Incorporated, began to explore ways in which to conserve the monument. A report was commissioned and under the guidance of a restoration consultant, Mr. Peter Maxwell, the marble was cleaned. It was decided that the water feature would not be restored to working order due to the difficulties of replacing or cleaning the internal piping without damaging the stone.
","criteria":"The FDA Carstens Memorial at Port Douglas, a decorative marble memorial drinking fountain erected c1907-08, is important in demonstrating part of the evolution of Queensland's history, being evidence of a period in which public memorials honouring prominent local citizens was an acceptable expression of public sentiment. This was particularly evident in North Queensland, where distance focused local loyalties.
The memorial is important in contributing to our knowledge of a body of similar public memorial drinking fountains of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, illustrating public taste and social values of the period.
|North Queensland public memorials similar in concept to the Carstens Memorial at Port Douglas have been erected to honour Dr EA Koch [Cairns, 1903] (601681); Dr Lloyd [Mackay, c1907 drinking fountain]; and WJ Castling [Townsville, 1908 drinking fountain] (600934). Mention should also be made of the earlier memorial to frontier heroine Mrs Mary Watson [Cooktown, 1886 drinking fountain] (600421).
The FDA Carstens Memorial is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of its type: a decorative marble drinking fountain comprising a pedestal and shaft surmounted by a bust, with traditional lion head founts and relief work which includes traditional motifs such as laurel leaves, oak leaves, forget-me-nots and daisies but also incorporates an unusual tropical motif, the hibiscus flower.
|The memorial is important in exhibiting particular aesthetic characteristics valued by the community. When originally installed it was a prominent landmark in Port Douglas due to its location in the centre of the main street of the town, its height, and its stark white marble grandeur. In 1999, conservation work was carried out to clean the marble and enhance the immediate area surrounding the memorial, indicating that the community still values the aesthetic appeal.
The FDA Carstens Memorial is important in demonstrating the high quality of the work of North Queensland monumental masonry firm Melrose and Fenwick. The decorative details on the memorial were likely executed by their artisan Harry Orton who was renowned for intricate relief work.
|Erected in memory of Friederich Detleip Andreas Carstens, the memorial has a special association with the life and work of a man who contributed substantially to the advancement of the Port Douglas and Mossman region between 1886-1906, enabling the district to grow and prosper through his involvement with the Douglas Divisional Board and his role in promoting the construction of both the Mossman Central Mill and the Port Douglas and Mossman tramway.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion H","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":5265,"place_ref":602713,"name":"Mossman District Hospital","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"Johnston Road","suburb":"MOSSMAN","lga":"DOUGLAS SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2009-06-12","description":"The Mossman Hospital is a complex of lowset buildings set on a level site on the western outskirts of Mossman. Cane fields and the Main Coast Range form a backdrop to the buildings which are set amongst spacious grounds of tended lawns and tropical gardens. A sweeping driveway, framed at access points by concrete formed gateways, approaches the main wing which is dominated by an extensive concrete façade with arched openings in the Spanish Mission style.
The core of the complex consists of a series of 1930s and 1940s buildings of timber framed construction with exterior walls formed in reinforced concrete together and newer buildings infilling spaces that previously separated the earlier pavilions. Early buildings include the Main Wing (c1930), the Maternity Wing (c1930) and the former Female Ward (built c1930 as nurses' quarters and now the Community Health Building) which face the east; former Nurses' Quarters (1936, now the Dialysis Building) to the north-east; an Operating Theatre (c1940) and Kitchen block (c1930) behind the Main Wing; and a Doctor's Residence (c1930) set apart to the south. Staff quarters (c1949) are located to the west of the main building.
A large, t-shaped building, constructed in 1991, now links the Main Wing and Maternity Wing together and another building, constructed in 1965, links the Main Wing to the former Female Ward. Both the 1965 and the 1991 buildings sit forward of the c1930 buildings. An early covered walkway (c1936) links the former Female Ward to the former Nurses' Quarters.
Main Wing c1930
The Main Wing is a long, narrow, symmetrical building of timber-framed construction with external parapet walls formed in reinforced concrete. It has a large hipped roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting with gablets at each end. The concrete walls are finished with a smooth render painted white and are punctuated with a series of arched windows to an enclosed verandah space. These frame a larger arched central entranceway. The building is raised off the ground and supported on concrete stumps. The external concrete walls extend down to the ground and are finished with a concrete plinth running around the base of building. A suspended concrete-formed ramp runs across the front of the building leading to a secondary entrance at the southern end. The arched entranceway is trimmed in red/ochre-coloured paint and is accessed via concrete formed splayed steps. The words 'MOSSMAN DISTRICT HOSPITAL' is lettered above the opening. Box gutters run behind the length of the parapet wall and large painted metal rain heads are located at the southern and northern ends. Decorative features include brackets located between the windows and the top of the parapet wall, a circular Maltese cross motif pressed into the walls below each of the windows, and scalloped edging and a circular motif above the entranceway.
The southern elevation has similar details to the front including concrete-formed parapet walls, arched steel-framed windows, decorative brackets and the Maltese cross detail.
The Main Wing consists of a central bank of offices, meeting and consultation rooms with long corridors formed by enclosed verandahs running along the length of the eastern and western sides. The enclosed verandahs have early fabric visible including v-jointed boards and belt-rails to internal walls and ceilings, and pairs of panelled timber French-light doors with glazed fanlights above. The inside face of the external walls are finished with smooth cement render similar to the outside and the Maltese cross motif is also visible. On the eastern verandah early floorboards that have been painted are visible. On the western verandah the floor has been lined with a recent resilient floor finish. Generally, most internal walls within the office and consultation areas appear to be early and formed from v-jointed boards though many have been lined up to two metres from the floor with resilient finishes. Ceilings are early v-jointed boards. Door and window hardware and light fittings appear to be recent. Some glazing to the French-light doors has been painted.
Maternity Wing c1930
The Maternity Wing is a smaller building to the south and is connected to the Main Wing via the 1991 extension. Like the Main Wing its principal elevation is to the east and it is of a timber-framed construction with external parapet walls formed in reinforced concrete and finished in a smooth cement render. It is asymmetrical in layout with a projecting gable to the east hidden behind a parapet wall with a scalloped profile. The remainder of the roof is hipped and clad in corrugated metal sheeting with a gablet to the northern end. An L-shaped verandah, with pairs of arched openings and timber slat balustrades capped with a bread-loaf profile handrail, runs the length of the building and runs around to the north where it adjoins the 1991 extension. It is accessed via concrete formed steps. The building is raised off the ground and supported on concrete stumps. Like the Main Wing, the external concrete walls extend down to the ground finishing at a concrete plinth. It has large arched openings to provide ventilation to the sub-floor area. The Maternity Wing has similar detailing and decorative features to the Main Wing including decorative brackets between the arched openings and the top of the parapet wall, scalloped edging and a circular motif above the projecting gable.
The northern elevation has similar details to the front elevation including concrete-formed parapet walls, arched verandah openings, timber slat balustrades and decorative brackets. A recent timber deck joins the Maternity Wing in this area to the 1991 extension.
The Maternity Wing consists of a maternity ward surrounded by verandahs on three sides (east, north and west) with a small projection to the west. It appears to have been re-roofed when the 1991 extension took place. The internal fabric appears to be original though some internal doors have been replaced. The verandah to the west has been enclosed to form a corridor that links the Maternity Wing to the 1991 extension.
Both the unenclosed and enclosed verandahs have early fabric visible including v-jointed boards and belt-rails to walls and ceilings and pairs of panelled timber French-light doors with glazed fanlights above. Floors to the enclosed verandah to the west have been covered with a resilient floor finish. The rear wall appears to have been altered during the 1991 extension.
Generally, most internal walls within the ward appear to be early though some have been lined up to 2metres from the floor with resilient finishes. Door and window hardware and light fittings appear to be recent.
A small room (use unknown) has been built post-1991 to the south of the maternity wing and has similar detailing to the older areas.
Former Nurses' Quarters c1930 (Community Health Building)
This building is located to the north of the Main Wing. An additional wing was added in 1991 to the rear (west).
Like the Main Wing and Maternity Wing its principal elevation is to the east and it is of timber framed construction with external parapet walls formed in reinforced concrete and finished with a smooth cement render. The main elevation is symmetrical in layout with central concrete-formed steps leading to a verandah which extends the length of the frontage. The front parapet wall is punctured by three large arched openings with pairs of narrow arched bays in between. Timber slat balustrades capped with bread-loaf profile handrails are located either side of the central opening. A timber slatted gate is located at the stop of the steps. The building has a hipped roof and is clad in corrugated metal sheeting. The front corners of the roof extend beyond the wall line and wrap around the front parapet wall. Gutters to the eaves are recent and have a square-profile.
Like the other c.1930 buildings it is raised off the ground and supported on concrete stumps. Its external concrete walls extend down to the ground finishing at a concrete plinth with large arched openings to provide ventilation to the sub-floor area. It has similar detailing and decorative features to the other buildings including decorative brackets, scalloped top edges to the parapet wall and a circular motif above the entrance.
The northern elevation has similar details to the front elevation including concrete-formed parapet walls, arched openings and decorative brackets. Recent aluminium windows have been inserted into the arched openings along this elevation. The southern elevation opens into a courtyard space created by the adjacent c1965 building. It is edged by an open verandah with arched openings and timber slat balustrades.
The building consists of offices surrounded on all four sides by verandahs. The verandahs to the east and south remain open while the verandah to the north has been enclosed to form offices. The verandah to the west has been enclosed to form a corridor between the former Female Ward and the 1991 extension. All of the verandah spaces have intact early fabric including v-jointed boards and belt-rails to walls and ceilings, floorboards and pairs of panelled timber French-light doors with glazed fanlights above.
Generally, most internal walls within the office spaces appear to be early though some have been lined up to two metres from the floor with resilient finishes. Door and window hardware and light fittings appear to be recent.
Medical Superintendent's Residence c1930
The Doctor's Residence is located to the south-west of the Main Wing and is set amongst tropical foliage beyond the bitumen drive. Like the other c1930 buildings it is a timber-framed building with external walls formed in reinforced concrete but is of a more domestic scale. It is raised off the ground and supported on concrete stumps. The external walls extend down to the ground finishing at a concrete plinth with large arched openings providing ventilation to the sub-floor area. It has simpler detailing and decorative features than the other buildings.
Its principal elevation is to the south where a parapet wall, finished with a smooth cement render, conceals a hipped roof which is clad in corrugated metal sheeting. The parapet wall wraps around each corner to the east and west. The main elevation is symmetrical in layout with a central concrete-formed set of steps leading to a verandah that extends the length of the frontage. Three arched openings are located on each side of the steps. Diamond-shaped infills are located below handrail height. A recent aluminium gate is located at the top of the steps and other openings have been screened with aluminium framed flyscreens.
On the northern elevation the hipped roof extends beyond the wall to an ogee profile metal eaves gutter. The roof shades a secondary entrance which leads via concrete formed steps on to a small porch. Details are similar to the main elevation with arched openings and diamond-shaped infills repeated. A c1950s bathroom building has been constructed immediately in front of the remainder of the elevation. It is a simple, timber-framed structure clad in profiled fibre-cement sheeting and supported on concrete stumps.
On the eastern elevation a second set of concrete-formed steps leads via an arched doorway to the southern verandah. Octagonal and arched-shaped openings are located on either side of the doorway all of which have been enclosed with screens. One arched opening has been enclosed with a timber window. A circular motif is located above the doorway where some curved detailing appears to have been removed.
The western elevation has similar details with concrete parapet walls arched openings with diamond-shaped infills to the verandah. Metal window awnings have been added above the window openings.
Though access to the interior of the residence was limited, much of the interior fabric and layout remains intact including v-jointed boards and belt-rails to walls and ceilings. Early floorboards are visible from the sub-floor area.
Kitchen block c1930 (remodelled c1949)
The Kitchen block is small building located behind the Main Wing. It has a gabled roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting and external walls of rendered reinforced concrete. Openings appear to be early and are both arched and rectangular with decorative metal window hoods located on the south elevation. A decorative circular motif is located in the gable to the south. A decorative metal-formed eaves bracket supports the roof in the south-west corner.
Internally ceilings are lined with v-jointed boards but walls appear to have been re-lined when refurbishments have taken place. Some internal walls appear to have been removed.
Former Nurses' Quarters c1936 (Dialysis Building)
The former Nurses' Quarters is a separate pavilion building linked to the former Female Ward via a timber framed covered walkway. It is sited to the north-east and is T-shaped in plan. It has been refurbished and painted recently.
This building is of a similar construction to the other c1930 buildings with timber-framing to internal walls, roofs and floors and external parapet walls formed in reinforced concrete finished with a smooth cement render. Its principal elevation faces the south and is symmetrical in layout with two sets of concrete formed steps accessing the front verandah which runs the length of the building. Each set of steps has walls of reinforced concrete with an over-sized scroll detail. The building has a hipped roof concealed behind the parapet walls with gablets at each end and is clad in corrugated metal sheeting. The verandah roof is supported on square reinforced concrete posts and has balustrades also formed in reinforced concrete. At the eastern end, part of the verandah has been enclosed with aluminium windows with a recent metal awning above while at the western end two openings are screened with timber lattice panels.
The building is raised off the ground and supported on concrete stumps. Again, the external concrete walls extend down to the ground finishing at a concrete plinth. Large arched openings provide ventilation to the sub-floor area. It has similar detailing and decorative features to the other c1930 buildings including decorative brackets between the verandah openings and the top of the parapet wall and scalloped edging features above the openings. Circular moulding formed from concrete emphasises the entrance points. Openings on the verandah have been altered where it appears early door openings have been enclosed with aluminium windows and sheeted to floor level. Painted floorboards are exposed but it is unclear if these are recent.
The eastern and western elevations have similar details to the front elevation. Parapet walls with decorative brackets extend half-way along the length of the building. Verandah openings have been enclosed with aluminium windows which are covered with a metal awning. For the remainder of these elevations the hipped roof and recent metal square-profile eaves gutters are exposed. On the northern (rear) elevation exterior walls end at the soffit line where the hipped roof extends to the eaves gutter. Openings on this elevation appear to have been altered and recent steps and ramps added. A recent projection has been built in the north-west corner of the verandah.
The building was originally laid out as nurses' living quarters with verandahs on all four sides. This layout generally remains but the internal dividing walls have been removed to form a central open-plan space and some verandahs have been enclosed to form office spaces and corridors. Much of the early fabric remains in these areas including v-jointed boards and belt-rails to walls and ceilings, timber panelled French light doors with glazed fanlights above. Some internal openings have been sheeted over with recent v-jointed sheeting. Those internal walls remaining have been lined to two metres high with a resilient finish along with all internal floors. Early floor boards are visible from the sub-floor area. Door and window hardware and light fittings appear to be recent.
A courtyard space is located behind the building to the south surrounded in part by a low reinforced concrete wall.
Walkway c1936 (connecting former Nurses' Quarters and former Female Ward)
The walkway links the former Nurses' Quarters and the former Female Ward and is a timber-framed structure with half-height walls and a curved roof. It is supported on concrete stumps and the sub-floor area is enclosed with timber lattice panels. Timber posts support the roof framing which is unlined. Large eaves overhangs are formed with timber eaves brackets which may have been added later. The roof is clad with corrugated metal sheeting. The timber framing to the external walls is sheeted with fibre-cement sheeting and capped with a bread-loaf profile handrail. Early hardwood floorboards are exposed.
Operating Theatre c1940
The operating theatre is a small building located between the former Female Ward and the Main Wing. It is accessed via a covered walkway. It has a hipped roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting and external walls of rendered reinforced concrete.
The main operating room retains original rendered and painted walls with floors and walls lined up to approximately one metre with tan-coloured terrazzo which also appears to be early. Some openings into this room also appear to be original; others have been altered. Ancillary rooms off the main theatre room have been re-lined.
Staff Quarters c1949
This building is located to the west of the 1991 extension. It is of similar construction to the c1930s buildings but has simpler detailing and little decoration. It has a hipped roof clad in corrugated metal sheeting and external walls of rendered reinforced concrete which extend to ground level. Rectangular ventilation slots mark the sub-floor area. Eaves gutters are recent and square in profile. External windows are aluminium framed glass louvres with recent security grilles fixed to the exterior to the western and eastern elevations with some sliding windows on the western and northern elevations. The entrance area is located on the western elevation and is accessed by a concrete-formed ramp. The entrance door has sidelights of timber lattice. Some early fixed timber louvres are located on the eastern elevation.
The building consists of offices and staff quarters and many internal walls appear to be in their original positions. Ceilings of fibre cement sheeting throughout the building appear to be early. Much of the original fabric to the eastern enclosed verandah remains including fibre-cement sheeted walls and ceilings and hardwood floorboards.
Setting and grounds
The Mossman Hospital buildings are surrounded by expansive lawns and spacious grounds. The long east-facing main façade overlooks a large tended lawn scattered with established trees and is set apart by a u-shaped bitumen drive. Two vehicle and pedestrian access points are marked by reinforced concrete gateways finished in a smooth cement render. These consist of a large central arch adorned with decorative brackets and a Maltese cross motif is set over the drive with two smaller arches on either side for pedestrian entry. The perimeter of the complex is enclosed with a recent aluminium tubular fence with a tubular steel fence at the rear, which is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. Pathways through the complex are generally concrete. Garden beds with colourful foliage plantings are located throughout the complex and mark entrance points to the buildings. These are generally defined with concrete edging.
Unobstructed views to the canefields and Main Coast Range to the west are a feature of the site and form a backdrop to the hospital buildings. These buildings and their spacious setting are clearly visible from the complex's entry points.
Non-significant elements
Various buildings have been added to the site over time and are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. These include the c1991-1992 T-shaped building located between the Maternity Wing and the Main Wing; the c1965 building located between the former Female Ward and the Main Wing; the Services Building to the rear of the site; the X-Ray building located between the Kitchen block and the Operating Theatre; and the new Morgue.
","history":"Mossman District Hospital was built c1930 by contractor JJ Riley for the Port Douglas Hospitals Board, and was opened on 23 August 1930 by JAC Kenny MLA, the State member for Cook. It was constructed to plans prepared c1925 by the Department of Public Works for a standard pavilion-type timber and galvanised iron hospital, and amended c1928 by Cairns architects Hill and Taylor to incorporate evocative Spanish Mission style concrete façades.
Mossman lies inland from Port Douglas, on the flood-plain of the Mossman River between the Great Dividing Range and the coast, about 70km north of Cairns. Port Douglas was established in 1877 as an alternative to Cairns as a service port to the Hodgkinson goldfield that had been proclaimed on 15 June 1876, but with the construction of the Cairns-Kuranda railway line 1882-1891, Port Douglas gradually declined as a town and port. The Mossman district, although initially taken up as homestead selections supplying fodder, maize and tropical fruits to the goldfields, converted to sugar-growing in the 1890s and prospered in the early twentieth century.
The township of Mossman was created from a private subdivision made following the establishment of the Mossman Central Mill on the Mossman River in 1894-1895. By 1910 the township comprised little more than the Exchange Hotel, a store, butcher's shop, hall and timber church, clustered around the sugar mill. These buildings and most of nearby Port Douglas were severely damaged by a cyclone on 16 March 1911. In the aftermath, businesses at Port Douglas gradually gravitated to Mossman and by 1920 the district's major services - including the Douglas Shire Council offices - were located in Mossman. In the 1920s the Court House and banking facilities moved from Port Douglas to Mossman, which by the end of the decade was the administrative centre of the shire. The town was given an additional boost with the completion of the Cook Highway between Cairns and Mossman in 1933.
Prior to 1930 the district hospital was located at Port Douglas. Constructed c1878, it was administered by a volunteer Hospital Committee and funded through local subscriptions, fund-raising and donations. Public hospitals were not yet a responsibility of the State, and although government assistance was given with the design of hospitals and payment of a resident medical officer's salary, funds to construct and conduct the hospital were raised locally. Public hospitals at this period were regarded as charitable institutions, and patients were means-tested.
The Hospitals Act 1923 gave the State government greater administrative responsibility for health care and the ability to fund the construction of hospitals. Funds from the Golden Casket lottery scheme established in 1920 were available, but used predominantly for the construction of maternity wards and baby clinics.
The Hospitals Act also introduced the concept of district hospitals. Existing local hospital committees could particulate in the new system, evolving into local hospital boards that included local and State government representatives.
From 1913 the Douglas Hospital Committee held meetings month about at Port Douglas and Mossman, reflecting the expansion of the hinterland community. From January 1923 the community was advocating construction of a hospital in Mossman, especially a maternity hospital.
In late 1924 the Douglas Hospital Committee made the decision that they would maintain the hospital at Port Douglas, but not extend or develop it any further, in anticipation of a new hospital being constructed at Mossman. By late January 1925 the Department of Public Works had prepared plans for a proposed Mossman hospital, to comprise a main block, maternity ward and nurses' quarters. These were single-storeyed timber buildings, high-set on timber stumps, with wide surrounding verandahs, and connected via covered ways. The plan was of the pavilion-ward type, reflecting contemporary thinking on hospital design. From the 1860s to the 1930s almost all hospitals erected in Queensland were pavilion plan - developed in Europe and England in the 1850s - based on the principles of providing good ventilation, light and sanitation, and on selecting a generous area of land, preferably elevated and on the outskirts of a town, to achieve this.
In the early twentieth century Queensland developed a variant of the pavilion plan hospital, the principal characteristics being: high-set timber construction; medium-to high-pitched roofs clad in corrugated iron, wide surrounding timber verandahs; ceiling vents and roof ventilators to assist air flow; the combination of male and female wards within a single pavilion, separated by smaller rooms such as matron's room, doctor's room, nurses' room and single bed private wards; and bathrooms, toilets and kitchens contained in semi-detached blocks off the main pavilions. In hospitals constructed after 1925, the provision of an operating theatre and an x-ray room became standard. Between 1901 and 1938, 78 pavilion plan hospitals/wards were erected in Queensland; by 1996 only 23 (just under 30 per cent) were extant and substantially intact; of the others, one had been removed from the site and the remainder had been demolished.
By January 1926 a large, level site off Johnston Road, about half a mile (0.8km) south-west of the centre of Mossman, had been acquired for the new hospital. A plan of the proposed hospital layout for the site was prepared by Public Works in April 1926, positioning the main building close to the centre of the site, facing east, and accessed from Hospital Street. To the north of the main building, connected via a covered way, were the nurses' quarters, and to south, also connected via a covered way, the maternity ward. At the western side of the site, and not physically connected to the main building, were a number of ancillary buildings, structures and facilities: a doctor's residence (with private driveway off Johnston Road), tennis court, wardsman's quarters, water supply pump house, drying green, laundry and powerhouse, incinerator, and morgue. The buildings were spaced well apart, to allow for future expansion on the site.
In April 1926 the Douglas Hospital Committee (established under the Voluntary Hospitals system) was replaced by the Port Douglas Hospitals Board (formed under the 1923 Act). Through 1926 debate between the Board and the State government centred on whether the Port Douglas hospital buildings would be re-located to Mossman, or new construction approved. The Department of Public Works estimated a cost of £20,868 to erect an entirely new hospital and £18,016 if the nurses' quarters and doctor's residence were re-located from Port Douglas. Local estimates were called, which proved lower than Works had anticipated, and in October 1928 the Board accepted from the government a loan of $14,000 for construction of entirely new hospital buildings.
However, the Board also referred the Works Department design to Cairns architects Hill and Taylor, to prepare an alternative scheme in concrete based on the original plans. Richard Hill and Arthur John Henry Taylor were in partnership in Cairns from 1927 to c1940, with a branch office in Townsville 1933-1939. The partnership was resumed in 1945 but was dissolved in 1952. During the interwar years Hill and Taylor developed an extensive practice in northern Queensland. Their work included the Cairns City Council Chambers (1929-1930, QHR 601576); the Johnstone Shire Hall at Innisfail (1935-1938, QHR 601579); the Barron Valley Hotel (1940) at Atherton, and buildings at several district hospitals besides Mossman, including Boulia (emergency operating theatre, 1936), Cairns (nurses' quarters, 1937), Mareeba (new hospital building, 1937), and Proserpine (new hospital building 1939-1940, QHR 601573).
For the Mossman Hospital, Hill and Taylor proposed replacing the planned timber balustrades to the verandahs with decorative, arcaded concrete verandah façades in the Spanish Mission style popular at the time. They argued that the concrete exterior would be less expensive to maintain, would save on fire insurance costs, and would better withstand cyclonic weather. The Department of Public Works approved the amended design and in mid-1929 extended the loan to £16,000.
Spanish Mission style architecture was popularised in Australia from the late 1920s. The emphasis on wide colonnaded or arcaded verandahs and white stuccoed exterior walls set against lush gardens (as popularised in the Californian version of the style), translated well to Australia's warm climate, particularly in Queensland. In utilising this idiom for the Mossman Hospital, Hill and Taylor created the illusion that the buildings were of a more substantial construction than was the reality - being principally timber-framed, clad and lined structures - and the white-walled buildings in the garden setting against a mountain backdrop proved to be extremely picturesque. It is the only Queensland public hospital constructed with a Spanish Mission exterior.
Decorative embellishments were kept to a minimum (to reduce costs and lessen maintenance) and included: curved concrete arches to the verandahs; moulded Maltese crosses in the front balustrades; a curved parapet defining the central entrance, with the raised lettering 'Mossman District hospital'; and concrete arches defining the entrances off Hospital Street and Johnston Road.
When opened in 1930, the hospital comprised: a main building with male and female wards, operating room, dispensary wing, outpatients wing, and kitchen wing; maternity ward; nurses' quarters; and medical superintendent's residence. The hospital was soon operating at capacity, a reflection of the growth of the Mossman district during the 1930s, and extensions were necessary within a few years. About 1936 new nurses' quarters were erected just inside the entrance to the site off Hospital Street, north of the drive, and at this time the 1930 nursers' quarters were converted into a female ward. A new operating theatre was constructed c1940 (Hill and Taylor called the tenders for this late in 1939). By 1946 the former nurses' quarters at Port Douglas (a detached timber building) had been moved onto the site and located just inside the main entrance gate, to serve as the Board Room and Secretary's Office for the Port Douglas Hospitals Board. Also by this date, an isolation block had been constructed at the north-west corner of the site, connected via a covered way to the female ward (1930 nurses' quarters). New staff quarters were erected c1949 on the western side of the site, north of the doctor's residence. In 1965 the outpatients wing/former dispensary at the northern end of the main building was demolished and replaced by a new building that provided accommodation for administration, outpatients and a dental clinic.
Major renovations and additions to the main building were made in 1992, when a large extension was constructed to the rear of and between the main building and the maternity ward, so that the formerly detached maternity ward was made part of the main block.
In 2009 the hospital remains a working facility.
","criteria":"The construction of the Mossman District Hospital (c1930 with 1930s and 1940s additions) is important in demonstrating the evolution of Queensland's history, being surviving evidence of the impact of the Hospitals Act 1923 in expanding the provision of hospital facilities in rural Queensland.
The place is important also in demonstrating the consolidation of Mossman as the administrative and service centre of Douglas Shire, at the expense of Port Douglas. This in turn reflected the importance of sugar cropping and milling in the district during the first half of the twentieth century, generating the income and population to support a district hospital in Mossman during the interwar period.
The Mossman District Hospital remains important evidence of a pavilion plan hospital of the early twentieth century. Of the 78 pavilion plan hospitals and wards erected in Queensland between 1901 and 1938, only 23 (just under 30 per cent) were extant and substantially intact by 1996. At the Mossman District Hospital, the original layout of separate but walkway-connected single-storeyed pavilions remains evident, despite later infill additions, illustrating a particular philosophy of hospital design popular in Queensland during the first four decades of the twentieth century. The principal c1930 pavilions - main wing and kitchen block, maternity ward, original nurses' quarters, and doctor's residence - remain in situ, as do the 1936 nurses' quarters, c1940 operating theatre and c1949 staff quarters, and retain their early form and much original fabric. The use of deep surrounding verandahs is important in illustrating the adaptation of pavilion ward design to a sub-tropical climate.
|Retaining much of the attractive original exterior detailing in the Spanish Mission style, and set in lush gardens against a spectacular mountain backdrop and with early decorative concrete arches to the street entrances, the Mossman Hospital and grounds is significant for its strong aesthetic appeal, which has been a valued characteristic of the place since 1930. It is the only Queensland public hospital designed with Spanish Mission style exteriors. The incorporation of similar stylistic elements into recent additions to the hospital is illustrative of the significance of the early aesthetic values of the place.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15239,"place_ref":600464,"name":"St Mary's by the Sea","alternate_name":"St Mary's Roman Catholic Church (former) | St Marys by the Sea","street_address":"Wharf Street","suburb":"PORT DOUGLAS","lga":"DOUGLAS SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"St Mary's by the Sea is a small, Gothic-style timber church situated on the foreshore at Wharf Street near the road leading to Pier 319.
The church is a timber-framed structure with exposed exterior studwork set on low timber stumps. It has a steeply pitched gabled roof clad in corrugated iron. The building is rectangular in plan with a vestry off the rear corner and a small central porch at the front flanked by lancet windows. The porch has a gabled roof clad in corrugated iron and a side entrance and is lit by triple lancet windows. The side walls are braced by simple timber buttresses. The bearers and joists are of hickory ash and penda timbers and the framing is hickory ash. The wall cladding was of northern silky oak although much of this and the flooring has had to be replaced.
Internally, the ceiling is unlined and three lancet-shaped timber archways separate the sanctuary from the nave.
","history":"St Mary's by the Sea was constructed in 1914 replacing an earlier Catholic church at Port Douglas, which had been destroyed by the cyclone of March 1911.
Port Douglas was established in 1877 as a port to service the newly opened Hodgkinson goldfield, west of the Great Dividing Range. In the period 1877 to 1893 Port Douglas functioned primarily as a port for the mining hinterland and secondarily as an administrative and service centre for the surrounding developing agricultural districts.
The Roman Catholic Vicariate Apostolic of North Queensland (renamed the Vicariate Apostolic of Cooktown in 1887) was established in 1877 and first staffed largely by Italians. The intention was to send missionaries among the Aborigines, however, when the first priests arrived they were required to serve the needs of new towns, the mining boom having brought into the area many Europeans, including large numbers of Irish Catholics. In 1884 the Irish Province of the Order of Saint Augustine agreed to take on the work of the Vicariate which was struggling to serve a scattered population of Catholics in a vast area with very few priests. The first chapel in Port Douglas was established in 1878 and by November 1881 a church had been erected under the direction of Father Peter Bucas, a Breton, on land on Port Hill. When Bishop Hutchinson arrived in 1884, an Italian priest, Father Guerrini, had been in Port Douglas for eight months and stayed on until an Augustinian arrived to replace him in May 1885.
The development of Port Douglas initially outpaced that of its nearby rival, Cairns, established in 1876. However, following the 1885 political decision to site the terminus for the Atherton Tableland railway at Cairns, it advanced rapidly at the expense of Port Douglas. After the opening of the Cairns-to-Mareeba railway in 1893, trade between Port Douglas and the mining hinterland declined markedly, and virtually ceased after the extension of the railway to Mount Molloy in 1908. Much of what remained of the town was destroyed when a severe cyclone levelled it on 16 March 1911. According to the local newspaper, itself put temporarily out of action, the church and presbytery were 'blown to bits'. The presbytery was rebuilt first and Mass was celebrated there until the church was complete in 1914. It is believed to have been constructed from the salvaged materials of the earlier church and to a similar form, though smaller in scale (NB the matter of the 1914 church comprising salvaged material is currently under review).
Port Douglas recovered from the cyclone and although it had lost the mining trade, it operated principally as a sugar port from the 1890s until 1958. The town was also the administrative centre of the Douglas Shire until the 1920s when its headquarters were shifted to Mossman in the heart of the expanding sugar lands. In 1917 the Parish Priest of Mareeba was also appointed as the Administrator of Port Douglas. The priest appointed next (in 1932) became the first to reside in Mossman. Two years later the name of the parish was changed to Mossman and Port Douglas.
During the 1960s and 1970s Port Douglas functioned mainly as a fishing and holiday town, retaining much of its historic character, but in the 1980s it emerged as a booming tourist resort, creating strong development pressures. St Mary's Church was by then in poor condition and could no longer meet the needs of the parish. In 1987 the Catholic Church gave the church building to the local community with the stipulation that it continue to be used for Christian purposes. As a Bicentennial Project, the church was relocated to parkland on the foreshore in November 1988. The Port Hill site was sold by the Church to finance construction of a new church on land elsewhere. Once relocated, the former St Mary's Church was restored and renamed St Mary's by the Sea. It is used as an non-denominational community church for religious and civil weddings, carol services and other special services and events.
","criteria":"The church of St Mary's by the Sea was built in 1914 and is associated with the early development of the Port Douglas district and the growth of the Catholic Church in North Queensland. It is one of the oldest buildings in Port Douglas and illustrates the built character of the town before modern redevelopment as a tourist resort.
|St Mary's is a good example of a modest church built to meet the needs of a small community in a remote area. Its simplicity, small scale and probable recycling of materials from its predecessor also illustrate the way in which many small communities of its era coped with the after effects of cyclones on towns with timber buildings.
|St Mary's has strong associations with the Catholic community of the area and has served Port Douglas for several generations. Community regard for the church was emphasised in 1988 when local people banded together to save and relocate the church as a community building.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15240,"place_ref":600465,"name":"Port Douglas Court House Museum","alternate_name":"Port Douglas Court House","street_address":"25 Wharf Street","suburb":"PORT DOUGLAS","lga":"DOUGLAS SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"The Port Douglas Court House is a simple timber clad structure, rectangular in plan and surrounded by verandahs on all four sides. It is elevated on low timber stumps with a gabled corrugated iron roof.
It is now relocated in its original position fronting Wharf Street and sits in a park-like tropical setting adjacent to the water.
The verandah roof is separate from the main roof and is supported by regularly spaced posts with simple diagonal braces in place of brackets at the top. The entrance is via a centrally located set of stairs at the front of the building, leading to a pair of timber doors featuring panels of diagonally laid boards. These are flanked by double hung four paned windows on either side.
Two pairs of french doors with glass panels to the top sections are located in the rear elevation and two similarly detailed single doors are located at the rear of the southern elevation. Evenly spaced double hung windows are located along the remainder of this side and along the opposite side. Gable end vents are centrally located in each gable end, the front one comprising three louvred arched forms.
Internally the building is divided into three rooms; the court room at the front and a smaller room at the rear. The front room is further divided to form a small room in the corner, which is only accessible externally.
Much of the original fabric survives in the main core of the building, however, some sections of the building have been reconstructed.
","history":"The Port Douglas Court House was constructed in 1879 as the first court house in the town. It is a simple timber structure with verandahs to all four elevations.
The Port Douglas Court House is one of the earliest surviving timber constructed court houses in Queensland. When Queensland separated from New South Wales in 1859, there were only six court houses in the new colony. During the next forty years, over 145 court houses were erected in Queensland, ranging from slab structures to the substantial Supreme Court building in Brisbane.
Port Douglas was established shortly after the discovery of gold on the Hodgkinson River in 1876. At this time the nearest port was Cairns, which was only accessible over difficult and mountainous terrain. In 1877, well-known bushman Christy Palmerston discovered a new route which gave easier access from the goldfields to the coast. By the end of the year, the site had been surveyed, declared a port of entry and clearance and officially named Port Douglas.
Trade from the goldfields quickly transferred from Cairns to the new township, followed by businesses. The government expressed confidence in Port Douglas by allocating £2000 for a road to the Hodgkinson River and also by constructing many public buildings in the town in the early stages of its development.
The Court House was constructed in 1879. The first Police Magistrate arrived in 1878, and the only place to conduct court sessions was in one of the newly constructed police cells. This was considered unsuitable, and the new Police Magistrate requested that a tent be sent. Court sessions were conducted in the tent for most of 1878, until the court moved into the newly completed Customs House. As the population increased, it became obvious that a purpose built court house was necessary.
When Port Douglas was surveyed, land on the southern side of Wharf Street was reserved for Court House and Post Office purposes. However by the time the plan was released, a building was already constructed on this site. The owner of the building was offered the land and the Court House was subsequently constructed on the opposite side of Wharf Street.
The building was designed by the Colonial Architect's office to suit the climate and the functions of a court house. It comprised a rectangular core with the court room at the front and two offices at the rear with verandahs to all four elevations. Access to the verandah was via a centrally located stair at the front. Additional sets of stairs were located at the eastern end of each side elevation.
Tenders were called in May 1879 and although local builders were among the tenderers, the contract was won by Brisbane builder Thomas Watson, probably as he was experienced in building court houses, primarily that at St Lawrence the previous year, which was similar in design.
Watson began construction in September and the building was completed in November at a cost of £475. The completed building differed slightly from the original plan in that it did not have a dividing partition between the rear offices, resulting in one large office rather than two smaller ones.
In 1880, the rear corner of the verandah was enclosed to provide a jury room. Complaints had been made by Judge Hely in 1879 regarding the lack of a jury room and approval to incorporate one at a cost of £20 was given in September 1879. Thomas Watson, who had stayed in Port Douglas to construct a number of other government buildings, completed the addition in May 1880. Thomas was again employed when the new jury room was found to be too small and the central section of the verandah at the rear of the office was extended and enclosed to create a more suitable space.
In the following years, much of the verandah flooring and almost all of the stumps were replaced due to deterioration inflicted by the weather and white ants. No major alterations were made until a cyclone in 1911 almost destroyed the building.
The cyclone occurred in March 1911 and left the building partially unroofed and blown off its stumps, some of which pierced the floor. An Inspector of Works was sent to assess the building and recommended realigning the building to face Wharf Street to avoid the soft ground at the rear of the building. The opportunity was also taken to construct a detached room at the rear of the building for Police purposes. In fact, the alterations were so substantial that when tenders were called, they were titled New Court House, Port Douglas. The tender for the additions and alterations was won by local builder H A Nielson, at a cost of £334.
After these major alterations were completed, no further work apart from general maintenance was undertaken until 1958 when an inspection identified that the weatherboards had shrunk to such an extent that light shone through the gaps in the unlined walls. This resulted in the court and judge's rooms being fully lined with hardboard.
The continued use of this building is indicative of the success of its simple design, which was used for many Queensland court houses up until the 1930s.
Although the Port Douglas Court House was primarily used as a place to conduct court sessions, it was also used for other purposes including police offices and briefly, as a residence for the town's only police officer. It was also considered as a site for the local school. Most of the cases heard were of a modest nature, the exception being one of the most notable court cases in Queensland history when in 1886 Ellen Thompson was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. In June 1887 she became the only woman to be hanged in Queensland.
The building was vacated in 1961 and after strong lobbying from the National Trust of Queensland and local groups to retain the building on its original site, was sold to B Whiting in 1968. The Court house and adjacent police cells were subsequently removed to the grounds of the Court House Hotel.
The cells were destroyed when a tree fell on them and a fire partially destroyed the detached former police offices. In 1993, the Court House was moved back to its original site, in the same position as when it was first constructed.
Since April 1997, the building has been used as a museum which was established by the Port Douglas Shire Historical Society. It incorporates displays pertaining to the history of the court house and also to local history.
","criteria":"The Port Douglas Court House was constructed in 1879. It was the first court house to be constructed in Port Douglas and demonstrates the rapid development of the town after the discovery of gold in 1876 at the nearby Hodgkinson River. As an early government building in far northern Queensland, it is demonstrative of the development of Queensland.
|It is rare as one the few surviving pre 1880s timber buildings in North Queensland, as the oldest building in Port Douglas and the second oldest timber court house in Queensland.
|The Port Douglas Court House demonstrates the principal characteristics of court houses constructed in regional towns during the early development of the state.
|The place has considerable aesthetic significance due to its setting in a park setting near the ocean and the simple symmetricality of the building.
|The place has strong associations with the local community who lobbied to retain the building on its original site and who were instrumental in having the building re-located back to its original position. The building is now presented as a museum which is maintained by a local community group.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion B | Criterion D | Criterion E | Criterion G","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":15241,"place_ref":600466,"name":"Port Douglas Wharf and Storage Shed (former)","alternate_name":"Port Douglas Wharf and Shipwreck Museum","street_address":"6 Dixie Street","suburb":"PORT DOUGLAS","lga":"DOUGLAS SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"1992-10-21","description":"This wharf is at the entrance to Dickson's Inlet approximately opposite the western end of Warner Street.
The wharf, which is constructed parallel to the channel, is of timber construction about 70m long [including the decked approach ramp] by 18m wide and supporting a wooden storage shed on the eastern side.
The storage shed roof trusses are constructed from 300x 150 mm [12" x 6"] and 200 x 150 mm [8" x 6"] sections, mainly Oregon, and the storage shed was planked internally to facilitate the stacking of bagged sugar.
A simple gable roofed form building, the former wharf storage building is built out over the water on timber piles braced by diagonal timbers.
The new corrugated steel roof is exposed internally and supported on burlings spanning between major trusses of mainly Oregon members. Timber planes fixed with dogspikes form the floor.
The building is an important element in the townscape of Port Douglas, being most visible from the sea and surrounding hills.
An earlier stone pitched ramp remains in evidence at the side of the later earth-filled access to the former storage shed and wharf.
","history":"Port Douglas Wharf and Storage Shed were erected in 1904 for the Douglas Shire Council, with extensions to the storage shed made in the 1920s.
Port Douglas was established in 1877 as a port to service the newly opened Hodgkinson Goldfield, west of the Great Dividing Range. In the period 1877 to 1893, Port Douglas functioned primarily as a port for the mining hinterland and secondarily as an administrative and service centre for the surrounding developing agricultural districts. The development of Port Douglas initially outpaced that of its nearby rival, Cairns, established in 1876. However, following the 1885 political decision to site the terminus for the Atherton Tableland Railway at Cairns, this town advanced rapidly at the expense of Port Douglas. After the opening of the Cairns to Mareeba Railway in 1893, trade between Port Douglas and the mining hinterland declined markedly, and virtually ceased after the extension of the railway to Mount Molloy in 1908. Much of what remained of the township was further decimated in a severe cyclone on 16 March 1911.
However, from the 1890s until 1958, Port Douglas survived principally as a sugar port. The town was also the administrative centre of Douglas Shire until the 1920s, when headquarters were shifted to Mossman in the heart of the expanding sugar lands. During the 1960s and 1970s, Port Douglas functioned mainly as a fishing and holiday town, retaining much of its historic character, but in the 1980s the town emerged as a booming tourist resort, with strong pressures for development.
It appears that the wharf was built to serve the handling of general cargo (as opposed to sugar) in preference to at least one other previous proposal for a jetty at Macrossan Street. Prior to this, it seems that all general cargo handling was carried out at the private wharfing facilities (variously Walsh & Co., Davidson's, Jack & Newell and possibly others), either by direct berthing for smaller vessels or for larger vessels by lightering from the general anchorage some 600 metres off the western end of Island Point. A stone-pitched jetty adjacent to the quarry site on the north-east corner of Island Point had been constructed earlier for passenger traffic, and was extended during 1888-1889 to a total length of 60 metres.
In 1904, Douglas shire Council obtained a loan from the Queensland Government to build a new wharf for the berthing of ships at a more convenient site in the harbour. This wharf was built with a decline from wharf to shore to ease the transfer of loaded rail trucks. A stone pitched ramp was built as part of the wharf construction. The 1904 wharf structure was about 15 metres wide, with a storage shed 30 metres long by 8 metres wide on the north-east corner of the decking. A jib crane was located on the northern end of the wharf and walkways were constructed alongside the storage shed.
During the early 1920s an additional row of piles was driven about 3 metres to the east along the length of the wharf. The 1904 storage shed was relocated over these by sliding the structure back from the wharf outer face. It appears that at this period the shed was extended on the southern end by about 12 metres. A lunch room building, also holding a fresh water tank, on the southern end of the storage shed was relocated to the same respective position when the shed was extended.
The wharf was last used for sugar shipment on 1 April 1958. Subsequently the wharf was leased for private enterprise from 1963 until January 1975. Well known Queensland diver Ben Cropp held a twenty year lease over the storage shed from October 1979. He operated a shipwreck museum in the shed which also included his living quarters. The lease was briefly extended into mid-2000. Cropp relocated the museum to Cairns later that year.
The foreshore near the Port Douglas Wharf was reclaimed in the late twentieth century, and the 1904 timber-piled and timber-framed jetty between the stone-pitched ramp and the storage shed was removed.
","criteria":"The building is significant for its historical association with the development of Port Douglas as a shipping terminal.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":16305,"place_ref":601542,"name":"National Bank of Australasia Building (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"11 Mill Street","suburb":"MOSSMAN","lga":"DOUGLAS SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-08-06","description":"The former National Bank of Australasia at Mossman is one of several historic buildings located in Mill Street, along which a tramline runs linking the Mossman Central Mill to cane farms west of the town. Other buildings along Mill Street include the Mossman Shire Hall and former Douglas Shire Council Building, Jack and Newell's General Store, the former Exchange Hotel and a refurbished picture theatre. The surrounding landscape is generally flat, sloping slightly towards the Mossman River and its tributaries. The distant views from the steps at the front of the bank are to Mount Demi and the Great Dividing Range to the west and to Mount Beaufort to the east.
The former bank building is sited facing north on a long, narrow allotment and is a simple timber-framed building with gabled roof, given a prominent street presence through the use of a masonry façade and portico. The façade is temple-like in its symmetrical composition comprising a number of elements of classical origin including widely spaced Doric columns between plain pilasters supporting a simplified entablature and cornice. The columns and surrounding architrave have a terrazzo finish as does the exterior and portico walls to approximately one metre above ground floor level.
From the street level, four steps finished in terrazzo lead up between the columns to a small portico with the riser of the third step engraved with the words "Douglas Shire Council" in uppercase lettering. The floor to the portico, inlaid with the words "National Bank", and the architrave, corbels and lintel surrounding the main entrance are also finished in terrazzo. The original front door has been replaced with an aluminium framed door with a side light. The tall windows either side of the front door comprise two pairs of six-pane steel framed casement windows vertically aligned and separated by a fixed light between the upper and lower sashes. Above the door, the fixed window has 12 panes and decorative wrought iron grilles are fixed to all windows on this elevation.
Behind the portico, the remainder of the main building is long and narrow, timber-framed and clad in weatherboards with a gabled roof. The northern gable end is hidden behind the façade which forms a parapet and the southern end of the roof is hipped. The roof of the main building is clad with ribbed-profile metal sheeting and the low pitched skillion roofs to the rear additions are clad in corrugated metal sheeting.
On the eastern elevation are four tall hooded windows each comprising two pairs of vertically aligned, six-pane timber framed casements. The west elevation is similar except the bottom pair of casements of the southern-most window have been replaced by a door which is accessed by a ramp.
Beyond the portico is the banking chamber, a large room approximately 11 metres long and seven metres wide with four metre high ceilings. It occupies the entire enclosed space of the building for most of its length. The walls are lined with vertically jointed pine boards and there is a profiled picture rail in line with the head of the windows. Ceilings are of plaster with cornices and decorative ceiling roses that remain. Skirtings, architraves and cornices in the chamber have multiple stepped profiles. To the rear of the chamber a full height wall of perforated fibreboard, is a later addition, built in line with the front of the strong room, which remains with its original door in place. While the walls and ceiling of the banking chamber are relatively intact, the fittings belonging to the bank have been otherwise removed and the floor covered with carpet. The original lighting has been replaced by hanging fluorescent fittings.
There are two weatherboard-clad additions built against the southern wall of the main bank building. A passage way leads past the strong room to these additions which include toilets and a kitchen and are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. The toilets are accessed by doors in the southern wall. Adjacent to this is the kitchen which appears to have been constructed after the toilets.
There is a garden bed along the western side of the allotment and behind the building is a long garage building clad in steel sheeting. This is recently built and is not of cultural heritage significance.
","history":"The former National Bank of Australasia at Mossman is a single storey masonry and timber building designed by notable Queensland architect, Lange Leopold Powell (1884-1938). Constructed from 1935 to 1936, this prominent building illustrates the economic growth experienced by regional towns in Queensland sugar producing districts during the 1920s and 1930s.
Mossman lies inland from Port Douglas, on the flood-plain of the Mossman River between the Great Dividing Range and the coast, about 70km north of Cairns. George Elphinstone Dalrymple's North-East Coast Exploring Expedition of late 1873 brought attention to the resources around the Johnstone, Mulgrave, Russell, Daintree and Mossman rivers and from 1874 cedar stands on the latter were being logged extensively. Behind the coastal river plain the Hodgkinson goldfield was proclaimed on 15 June 1876. Initially accessed via Cairns, in 1877 a new route between the coast and the goldfields was found and Port Douglas was established as the new service port about four miles south of the mouth of the Mossman River. With the construction of the Cairns-Kuranda railway line between 1882 and 1891, however, the importance of Port Douglas as a town and port declined, while the town of Mossman emerged in the early twentieth century as the administrative centre of a thriving sugar-growing district.
By 1878 the most readily accessible cedar stands in the Mossman River district had been exhausted, although logging in more difficult to reach areas continued into the 1880s. Agricultural settlers followed the timber getters from the late 1870s. Initially they supplied fodder, maize, rice and tropical fruits to the goldfields. Excessive rain and poor soil productivity, however, resulted in much of this land being converted to sugar-growing, with Brie Brie Sugar Plantation and mill being established in Mossman in 1883 (although the mill soon became inoperative). The impetus for more extensive sugar cropping in the district came with the establishment of the Mossman Central Co-operative Mill in the mid-1890s under the provisions of the 1893 Sugar Works Guarantee Act.
The township of Mossman was created from private subdivisions made in 1885 and following the establishment of the Mossman Central Mill. Despite the rapid expansion of sugar growing in the district from the mid-1890s, in 1910 the township of Mossman comprised little more than the Exchange Hotel, a store, butcher's shop, hall and timber church, clustered along Mill Street leading to the sugar mill. These buildings and most of nearby Port Douglas were severely damaged by a cyclone on 16 March 1911. In the aftermath, and with the continued rise in transient and permanent workers in the sugar industry, businesses at Port Douglas gradually gravitated to Mossman. In the 1920s the Court House and banking facilities moved from Port Douglas to Mossman, and by the end of the decade many of the district's services, including the Post Office, were located in Mill Street. In the 1930s town activity was further increased with the opening of a new hospital in 1930, the completion of the Cook Highway between Cairns and Mossman in 1933, and the opening of the new Shire Hall and Offices in 1937. Mossman was now the administrative centre of the shire. During this period of exceptional growth in north Queensland's sugar towns, the National Bank of Australasia Ltd built its branch in Mill Street, Mossman.
The National Bank of Australasia began business in Melbourne in 1858. The bank expanded into rural and regional Victoria, South Australia and later into Western Australia. Branches were opened in New South Wales and Tasmania in the mid-1880s. The bank was restructured in 1893 after the economic crisis of the early 1890s and it became a public listed company as the National Bank of Australasia Limited (NBA).
In 1920 the NBA opened a branch in Brisbane - its first in Queensland. In 1922 the NBA absorbed the Bank of Queensland, which had been formed in 1917 following the merger of the Royal Bank of Queensland (formed in 1886) and the Bank of North Queensland (established in 1888), providing the NBA with branches throughout Queensland.
The NBA's principal competition in Mossman was the Queensland National Bank (QNB), established in Brisbane in 1872. From 1895 the Port Douglas branch of the QNB had served as the bank to the Mossman Central Mill Company and on 28 December 1900 a QNB agency opened in Mossman. In the 1920s a Mossman branch of the QNB, with attached residence, was constructed in Mill Street. This building survives, but has been altered.
The NBA first opened a branch in Mossman on 28 June 1929 in premises rented from the Exchange Hotel. Banks often rented premises prior to committing themselves to a region to test its viability. The bank's decision to acquire land in Mill Street in 1934 is a strong indication that the Mossman district, buoyed by the expansion of the sugar industry, was economically stable during this period. On 21 March 1935 builders Arthur E Zillfleisch and Tom Booth signed a contract for the construction of purpose-built banking premises, which were completed in 1936 for the contract price of ¿320.5.3.
The new building was designed by Brisbane-based architect Lange Leopold Powell, who undertook a variety of commissions for the NBA between 1922 and 1938. Powell was articled to architects Addison and Corrie from 1900 to 1905, and later worked as a draftsman in the Queensland Public Works Department. In 1908 he went to London, returning to Brisbane in 1911. From this time until his death in October 1938, Powell worked in private practice either on his own or in partnerships with other architects. He designed, remodelled or altered 26 other branch buildings for the NBA; was involved in the design for the NBA's Brisbane headquarters; and designed business premises for the Commercial Bank of Australia Ltd. Apart from his work in Mossman, his work on NBA buildings in regional Queensland included the branches in Ayr (which has a grand, classically-styled front facade), Bundaberg, Innisfail, Cairns, Wynnum, Mareeba, Tully, Atherton.
Powell designed other notable buildings in Brisbane that are entered in the Queensland heritage register, including: St Martin's War Memorial Hospital (1922, QHR 600075), Ballow Chambers (1924 and 1926, QHR 600164) and the Brisbane Masonic Temple (1930, QHR 600074). In addition to this portfolio of work, Powell was a key figure in the development of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, co-drafting the constitution in 1930 and serving as the institute's fourth president between 1932 and 1933. The architectural firm he started continues today as Powell, Dods and Thorpe Architects, with offices in Brisbane and Townsville.
One of the most distinctive qualities of the building was the impressive temple-like street facade. The use of classically-derived stylistic elements was a recurring theme in banking architecture in Queensland, and Australia generally, from the nineteenth century well into the middle of the twentieth century and was very popular during the 1920s and 1930s. Imposing, well-balanced designs symbolised all that banking institutions hoped to convey about the reliability and dependability of their businesses.
Mill Street was still unsealed when the bank was built in the middle of the decade, however, by its close the Douglas Shire Council Offices as well as the Town Hall, Post Office, School of Arts, Queensland National Bank, Post Office Hotel, Jack and Newell's General Store, Exchange Hotel and the National Bank of Australasia all occupied a place on Mill Street and were part of a regional commercial precinct.
From 1943 to 1948 the Mossman branch of the NBA closed its business due to the war time rationalisation of manpower. During this period the building was used as a residence. In 1948 the NBA absorbed the QNB, closing the former QNB branch at Mossman.
In 1981 the National Bank of Australasia Limited merged with The Commercial Banking Company of Sydney Limited to form the National Commercial Banking Corporation of Australia Limited and subsequently changed its name to National Australia Bank Limited (NAB). On 7 April 1986, the Mossman branch of the NAB moved into new, larger premises in Front Street, which had become the main street of the town, being the thoroughfare from Cairns and Port Douglas in the south through Mossman and north towards the Daintree. Mill Street, by comparison, became less important as the town's commercial activities were no longer centred solely on the mill.
The former NAB building was purchased by Douglas Shire Council in 1987 to house its Engineering Department. The following year the roof was replaced with profiled metal decking. In 1997 the Council, including its Engineering Department, occupied new purpose-built premises in Front Street, and the former bank building was then leased by Centrelink until 2001. It stood vacant until 2002 when it was leased by Douglas Arts Inc., a community arts group. It continues to be used as a community arts centre in 2010.
In June 2008 the entire former Douglas Shire, which had become part of the Cairns Regional Council earlier that year during a state-wide local government reform program, was declared an iconic place under the Iconic Queensland Places Act 2008. In the gazetted declaration (No. 52, 20 June 2008) of this iconic place, the built environment values listed as being notable and worthy of preservation include those related to Mossman being the administrative centre of the Shire.
","criteria":"The former National Bank of Australasia building at Mossman was constructed in 1935-1936 and makes an important contribution to our understanding of the era of prosperity experienced by many north Queensland towns during the expansion of the sugar industry in the 1920s and 1930s. It is a small but prominent building in the main commercial precinct of Mossman, with a façade designed to impress and reassure patrons of the banking institution's financial stability and probity. The building was constructed at a time when Mossman was emerging as the administrative heart of the Douglas Shire, a successful sugar-growing and -milling district of Queensland. Mossman's identity in this Shire was confirmed in the Iconic Queensland Place of Douglas declaration made in June 2008 regarding the Shire.
|The former National Bank of Australasia building at Mossman is an excellent example of a small bank building designed to meet the needs of a small rural town and the agricultural district it serviced, while at the same time reaffirming the banking institution's financial credentials by incorporating a conspicuous and substantial masonry façade to the building. Displaying a hierarchy of functions and materials - an impressive, classically-styled masonry façade with entrance portico and columns masking a utilitarian, weatherboard-clad building behind - and retaining its early banking chamber, strong room and fenestration, the building has a high degree of integrity and is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of its type.
The building also contributes to our understanding of the work of notable architect Lange Leopold Powell who made an important contribution to Queensland's built environment, and was a key figure in the development of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects. Powell designed or modified numerous buildings for the National Bank of Australasia in Queensland, of which this is a fine example of those he completed in regional towns - characteristically a strong classically-influenced street façade to an otherwise simple building. He also designed many other significant buildings, such as the Ann Street Masonic Temple (QHR 600074) in Brisbane, arguably one of his finest works.
|The former National Bank of Australasia building at Mossman is of aesthetic significance for the valuable and prominent contribution it makes - through scale, form, materials and design - to the distinctive visual character of the town. This is characterised by a patterning of spaces and buildings comprising one to two storeys, built to the footpath with a formal street façade in contrast to a simpler structure behind. The impressive, classically-designed façade of this building is of particular aesthetic merit. The use of classical architectural elements in the façades of banks and other commercial buildings, town halls and institutional buildings was popular in the 1920s and 1930s and has made a noticeable contribution to Queensland's built environment.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30635,"place_ref":602760,"name":"St David's Anglican Church and Raintrees (Samanea saman)","alternate_name":"St Davids Church | St Davids Anglican Church and Raintrees | Samanea saman","street_address":"3 Foxton Avenue","suburb":"MOSSMAN","lga":"DOUGLAS SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-08-06","description":"St David's Church is located north of the centre of Mossman in a park setting on a triangular site between the Captain Cook Highway (Foxton Avenue), which it addresses, and Mossman Street. It is set approximately four metres back from the street and is aligned at an angle of approximately 60° to the course of the street. When approached from the south and the centre of town it sits at the northern end of a grassed area behind an avenue of large, mature raintrees (Samanea saman) that dominate this section of Foxton Avenue.
From the church looking west there are views over George Davis Park with cane fields behind, and distant views of the Main Coast Range (part of the Great Dividing Range) and the Daintree National Park. The church behind the avenue of raintrees is an important aspect of the view from George Davis Park.
St. David's is a small church with a terracotta tile-clad roof and walls built of stone, concrete blockwork and detail sections of render. It is aligned on an east-west axis with a nave and small porch at the front and western end, a chapel and vestry to the south and north sides of the crossing respectively, and an apse on the eastern end of the nave.
The four stages in which the church was constructed are discernable in differences in its fabric. The fabric of the first three stages is critical to the cultural heritage significance of the church, while the fourth stage is important for its form but not for the materials used.
The first stage of construction is represented in the stonework up to floor level in the nave and apse, comprising random rubble to about one metre above ground level.
The second stage comprises the walls of the nave and apse above floor level, including the rounded archways and the coloured concrete block quoins, and reflects the Byzantine influence in the original design. The walls of the nave are approximately 8m high and it is approximately 12m long by 6m wide. There are four round arch openings on the exterior elevations of the nave: two on the north elevation and two on the south elevation. The round arch openings near the porch are about 1.5 metres wide. The eastern arched openings are much wider - about four metres. The polygonal apse begins in a round arched opening almost the width and height of the east wall of the nave. The apse has narrower round arch openings taking up most of each of the five sides. The walls of the nave and apse are constructed of random rubble. There are alternating red and blue coloured concrete block quoins to the corners and the edges of the arched openings.
The third stage comprises the porch, including the west gable parapet wall surmounted by a Latin cross at its apex, the gable parapet wall to the nave also with a Latin cross, and the tiled roofs of the nave, apse and porch. The porch is to the west of the nave, its walls also constructed of random rubble with uncoloured concrete block quoins. The western porch facade has a rectangular window with three lights, the outer casements of which open outwards while the central light is fixed. There is a narrow, upright slit in the stone wall above the window. The western façade of the nave has a circular window in-filled with fixed louvers and topped by a stone drip moulding. Both gable parapets have moulded block-work coping. The northern elevation of the porch features a doorway now accessed by a ramp with a bell mounted to the right-hand side of the doorway that is framed in bevelled concrete.
The roofs of the nave and porch are gabled, pitched at a 45° angle and have ridges running east-west. The roof of the apse abuts the wall of the nave and has a three-faceted hip. All roofs are clad with terracotta tiles.
The fourth construction stage corresponds to the additions undertaken in c1982 that installed a chapel centred on the southern side of the crossing and a vestry on its northern side. The walls of these additions are constructed of concrete block: rendered quoins and infill panels of textured blocks. The roofs of the chapel and vestry abut the wall of the nave, have three-faceted hips at each end, and are clad with coloured concrete tiles. Each of the three facets of the chapel southernmost end has a narrow window with rounded top. On the northern side the c1982 vestry addition mirrors that of the chapel opposite. Like the chapel the vestry has windows in the three of the end wall facets. There is a door in its western facade.
A small building housing toilets is immediately adjacent to the northeast corner of the nave.
Random rubble stonework is largely exposed on the interior of the church, as are the blockwork quoins. The porch, nave and apse have unpainted timber ceilings. There are panels of painted timber under the window sills in the apse.
The porch (4m x 2m x 3m high) has a carpeted floor, unpainted, rendered walls and a stained timber ceiling. The window in the northern wall of the porch has stained glass depicting a scene of Christ and children. The concrete frame above this window features the Christogram IHS (derived from the first three letters of the Greek name of Jesus).
The nave has concrete floors and a ceiling of stained timber panelling with six pendant light fittings and two fans hanging from it. The windows in the round-arch openings on the southern side of the nave contain stained glass depicting the Madonna and Child flanked by St Margaret and St Hilda. On the northern side Christ is depicted as a shepherd, flanked by St Andrew and St David. Between these windows and the arches leading into the chapel and vestry the stonework has been rendered.
The archways between the nave and chapel and vestry either side of the crossing are in-filled with stained timber boarding, to the south to the spring-line of the arch and to the north to door head height. The chapel is open to the main body of the church and its ceiling corresponds to the lower line of the in-fill panel, while the vestry is separated by a stained timber panel wall and a central door. The chapel and vestry have concrete floors, unpainted concrete block walls and stained timber ceilings.
Two concrete steps lead through a wide round-headed arch at the east end of the nave to the apse, which has unfinished random rubble walls and timber paneled ceiling similar to the nave. The concrete floor is covered with red carpet. There is a mosaic depicting Christ in the archway directly behind the altar.
Raintrees (Samanea saman)
An avenue of raintrees (Samanea saman) is located along a section of Foxton Avenue (Captain Cook Highway) to the south and west of the church. Six are located on the eastern side of the road with another five on the western side, and make an emotive setting for St David's Church particularly on the approach out of the centre of town to the south. The interlocking canopies that stretch over the road create a tunnel of shade beyond which stands the church in the sunlight. The large volume of space protected by this canopy stands above a carpet of grass on the triangular lot between Foxton Avenue and Mossman Street, and effect which also highlights the positioning of the church.
Samanea saman generally grow to between 15m and 25m tall with a broad dome-shaped canopy typically 30m in diameter. The trees leading to St David's Church are substantial and mature; some about 15m tall with canopies of about 30m in diameter. Some of the trees have multiple trunks, the circumferences of which being between 6m to 10m. Ferns and other epiphytes grow from the trunk and branches of several trees.
","history":"St David's Church is a small stone and masonry building constructed in three stages between 1912 and 1952 to encompass a porch, nave and apsidal sanctuary, with a vestry and chapel added c1982. It replaced an earlier Anglican church on the same site, which was destroyed by a cyclone in March 1911. The original design, as influenced by the architectural traditions of the Byzantine Empire, was completed by the long-serving rector, Reverend Edward Taffs, who drove the project to fruition over the course of his career in charge of the Mossman/Port Douglas Parish of the Anglican Diocese of Carpentaria (1900-1996). The current church and its evocative setting behind an avenue of mature, fern-clad raintrees (Samanea saman) are situated to the north of the town centre, on the road to Daintree.
Mossman lies inland from Port Douglas, on the flood-plain of the Mossman River between the Great Dividing Range and the coast, about 70 km north of Cairns. George Elphinstone Dalrymple's North-East Coast Exploring Expedition of late 1873 had brought attention to the resources around the Johnstone, Mulgrave, Russell, Daintree and Mossman Rivers and from 1874 cedar stands on the later were being logged extensively. Behind the coastal river plain the Hodgkinson goldfield was proclaimed on 15 June 1876. Initially accessed via Cairns, in 1877 an alternative route to the coast was found and Port Douglas was established as the field's new port, about four miles south of the mouth of the Mossman River.
By 1878 the most readily accessible cedar stands in the Mossman River district had been exhausted, although logging in more difficult-to-reach areas continued into the 1880s. Agricultural settlers followed the timber getters from the late 1870s, one of the earliest on the Mossman being Daniel Hart, an immigrant from Jamaica and a former timber getter. In 1878 he selected land along the river, calling the property Coolshade, and in 1885 subdivided part of it, which became the western half of the town of Mossman. The town was first called Hartsville in his honour.
Excessive rain and poor soil productivity resulted in most of the region being planted out with sugarcane from the 1880s. In 1883, Brie Brie Sugar Plantation established Mossman's first mill but this was unsuccessful and largely inoperative by 1886. This did not deter Commissioner WO Hodgkinson from assessing the flat land around the Mossman River as having great potential for cane production during his investigation of sites for central sugar mills conducted in 1886. The impetus for more extensive sugar cropping in the district came with the establishment of the Mossman Central Co-operative Mill in the mid-1890s under the provisions of the 1893 Sugar Works Guarantee Act.
As the Mossman River community consolidated, religious denominations established a presence in the district. Prior to the formation of a separate Port Douglas and Mossman Parish, missionary chaplains from the Church of England's Diocese of North Queensland, based in Townsville, travelled to Port Douglas to conduct services. In 1898 the separate parish was created after parishioners subscribed ¿100 per year to support a minister. A church was built in Mossman on land that had been part of Daniel Hart's 1885 subdivision (and part of which he donated to the church in 1898).
The first St David's Church at Mossman was a simple gable-roofed timber structure, dedicated on Trinity Sunday on 29 May 1899. It took the name of the Welsh patron saint, St David, reputedly because Mr RD Rex, a local farmer and parish secretary during construction had been christened in the new cathedral of St David's in Hobart in 1874. The Bishop of North Queensland agreed to the name. The link with the Tasmanian cathedral was again made in 1955 when a fragment of the stone cross at St David's Cathedral was presented to the Mossman church, where it was set in cement at the entry.
From 3 August 1900 the Port Douglas and Mossman Parish was incorporated into the newly created Church of England Diocese of Carpentaria, which encompassed the Torres Strait, Cape York Peninsula, the Southern Gulf of Carpentaria and the whole of the Northern Territory, with the Bishop's seat located at Thursday Island. The Queensland boundary of the diocese extended to south of Port Douglas, with Cairns remaining in the Diocese of North Queensland. Church historians, including Keith Rayner is his 1962 doctoral thesis The History of the Church of England in Queensland, argue that the formation of a new diocese "came at a time of economic and commercial depression, and [when] its European population was markedly declining." The new diocese faced significant challenges due to its size, isolation, lack of resources and the cultural and linguistic diversity of its parishioners. It struggled to be self-supporting, and lacked sufficient internal support to accomplish its missionary goals.
Despite these challenges, the Port Douglas and Mossman Parish initially thrived. In January 1902 The Carpentarian noted that the church had resolved to raise £150 for a rectory at St David's, which was constructed in 1903; and in 1904 Mossman became the centre of the parish. The shift away from Port Douglas reflected the decline of the latter as an early port and regional centre, the ascendancy of Cairns as the region's premier port, and the emergence of Mossman as the centre of the Mossman River district.
In 1904 the Reverend Edward Taffs took up duties as rector at Mossman and remained there for the next 46 years until his death aged 90. Taffs had migrated from England to Victoria in September 1889 and was ordained a minister in St Paul's Cathedral in Melbourne in 1901; his first appointment being in South Gippsland. He opened the Holy Trinity College at Kew, occupying the position of headmaster while continuing as a minister. In mid-1904 he left Victoria with his family and moved to Mossman to take up the position of rector. He and his wife Mary worked throughout the parish, travelling to Mount Molloy, Mount Carbine and Port Douglas on horseback. Taffs' time in Mossman was an unusually long commitment for an Anglican clergyman at this period in such a remote part of the state. His missionary commitment and principles, as well as his dogged determination, were pivotal to the development and construction of the second St David's Church.
On 16 March 1911 a severe cyclone caused extensive damage to buildings at Port Douglas and Mossman. The Carpentarian of Easter Eve 1911 reported that the facilities lost included the churches at Port Douglas and Mossman, the Port Douglas house belonging to the Bishopric Endowment Fund (used as a rectory), a church hall at Mossman that Taffs had erected at his own expense, and a small church at Mount Molloy. A flood two weeks after the cyclone swept away the remaining debris.
The paucity of church finances, often reliant upon contributions from English church societies, meant that raising funds for building projects was a constant challenge. For the Parish of Port Douglas and Mossman, available funding was first directed toward re-erecting the Mossman parish hall. Prolonged difficulties in raising further funds, and a commitment to building a new church debt-free, resulted in this hall serving as the temporary church until 1952.
The impact of the 1911 cyclone convinced local parishioners of the need to rebuild St David's in stone, a more expensive undertaking than erecting a timber structure. Reverend Taffs reputedly prepared the design for the new church which, in contrast to the simple, gabled timber churches that dominated the area, drew from the architectural traditions of the Byzantine Empire or that of the Romans during the Middle Ages. The culmination of Early Christian architecture, the style that came to be associated with this empire began after AD 330 when Emperor Constantine established the Imperial Roman capital at Byzantium, renaming it Constantinople. From its palette the design for St David's originally incorporated a series of domes and barrel vaults over the nave and apse, a dome on a windowed drum, and rounded arches of coloured stone. The planned church was modest in size - 44 feet long by 25 feet wide (13.41m x 7.62m) - and designed to seat 120 persons. Construction commenced in 1912 after suitable stone was found at Bonnie Doon, a local cane farm on the Mossman River. Kerr reports in his Northern Outpost report of 1995 that stones were transported from the property with the help of the Mossman Mill which agreed to supply half a mile of tramline to enable it to be hauled from the quarry to the construction site. A contract for the nave stone was let for 850 tons at three shillings a ton and Mossman Central Mill railed it to the church site. To withstand potential flooding, substantial foundations were laid by parishioners under the supervision of a stonemason. These were completed in 1915, but further work was delayed by World War I (1914-1918). A decoratively painted timber panel intended for the sanctuary was crafted during this time for use in the temporary church and later transferred to the stone building.
After the war the Ladies Building Committee raised money for construction of the chancel and one bay window in 1919, but further obstacles slowed the building program. The price of cement escalated and then in February 1920 another cyclone damaged the rectory and temporary church, and building funds set aside for the new church had to be channeled into repair of the temporary church/hall and rectory.
During the 1920s, fund raising waned and in the early 1930s progress remained slow due to the depressed economy. Concerted efforts to complete the church did not resume until the late 1930s after modifications to the plan were made by firms of architects and engineers, Hassall and Redmond, both of Cairns, who called tenders in January 1937. As the prices submitted were more costly than the committee had anticipated, construction of the stone walls did not commence until 1940, with most of the work undertaken by Reverend Taffs and his two grandsons. Further delay followed while funds were raised for the roof. With the start of World War II (1939-1945), voluntary fund-raising, building materials and skilled labour were diverted to the war effort, delaying construction even further.
Reverend Taffs died in 1950, just two years before St David's Church was completed. His replacement, Father Ware, considered that his first task was to complete the church. In 1951 the design was revised by Cairns architect Edwin R Orchard to incorporate a simpler and less expensive gabled roof and parishioners arranged a loan with the National Bank. Tenders were called in October 1951 and the contract was awarded to Baker and McMaster of Cairns. The work cost £7,586 and was completed in August 1952. On 27 September 1952 Bishop Hudson finally dedicated the stone church, 40 years after construction had commenced.
St David's Church suffered structural damage to its sanctuary during a cyclonic storm in 1979. In the same year a building fund was established to construct a vestry. In 1980 a cruciform design was accepted, with small transepts to accommodate a vestry to the north and a chapel to the south of the crossing.
The tender was awarded to R and J Carroll in 1982. The new chapel and vestry were consecrated in 1984, completing the building that was started in 1912 under the guidance of Rev. Taffs. Parishioners have since installed leadlight windows designed by artist Chris Oswald (donated in memory of Dorothy Louise Kieseker) and a tile mosaic depicting the risen Christ.
In 1996 the Diocese of Carpentaria was dissolved and the Parish of Port Douglas and Mossman, among other Cape York parishes, was returned to the responsibility of the Anglican Diocese of North Queensland.
Raintrees (Samanea saman)
An avenue comprising about eleven mature raintrees grows either side of Foxton Avenue (the Cook Highway) from its intersection with Mossman Street to the church porch. This avenue contributes substantially to the setting of St David's and the aesthetic experience of it, which is considered to be of State-level cultural heritage significance.
The raintree is native to a range stretching from southern Mexico into northern South America and its accepted botanical name, as included in the Australian Plant Census and established in 1916, is Samanea saman (Jacq.) Merr. A plaque outside St David's states that the avenue of trees was planted by Rev. Taffs using seeds obtained from Jamaica by Daniel Hart, one of the area's earliest selectors to whom the land (portion 35) originally belonged; however no evidence has been uncovered to substantiate this account or resolve the incongruity it contains between the year of Hart's death, 1900, and when Taffs become rector at Mossman in 1904. A recent arborist's report estimates the trees are between 80 and 100 years old making the date range in which they were planted between 1908 and 1928. No trees appear in a parish photograph of the timber church destroyed by cyclone in 1911 and apparently built on the site of the later stone church.
Interestingly the first record of the raintree species being introduced outside its native habitat comes from the Caribbean Islands, and since then it has become naturalized and widely planted in pastureland for shade and forage on most of these islands, including Jamaica from where Hart immigrated to Australia. In the second half of the nineteenth century the trees were introduced into many tropical countries as street and shade trees, most extensively in India, southern Asia and the Pacific. The species has been known by a number of other common names including guango (in Jamaica), monkey pod and saman.
Raintrees are now common in coastal north-east Queensland, including around Mossman and Port Douglas. Flora of Australia (2001) reports that the trees are naturalized along the Stewart Creek south of Daintree, about 24 km north of Mossman, with other naturalized populations occurring at South Johnstone and Dingo Beach on Cape Gloucester (near Bowen). A mature tree (estimated to be 125 years old) has been identified near the weighbridge on Mossman's Mill Road. In 1907 they were reported as growing in the main street of Ingham and in Townsville. At the opening of the Cook Highway from Cairns to Mossman in late 1933, The Courier Mail of 19 December 1933 described already established raintrees lining part of the Port Douglas to Mossman stretch of the road.
The key to the early renown of the raintree stemmed from the apocryphal story that it was a panacea for drought stricken districts through the ability of its leaves to condense moisture out of the air, retain it in large quantities and then expel it through its leaves and trunk. This story, and how it had been disproved, was discussed in two 1911 articles from the Port Douglas and Mossman Record. Otherwise it was seriously considered as a useful crop for the fodder its large seed pods provided for cattle.
It appears that in late nineteenth century Queensland the raintree was known by one of its botanical synonyms, an alternate spelling of Pithecellobium saman. In an August 1879 article in The Queenslander, recounting the minutes of the most recent meeting of the Acclimatisation Society of Queensland, this species is discussed and a report tabled from the director of the Botanical Gardens in Jamaica, from where seeds had been obtained by the Queensland Colonial Office. The Chairman reported that the tree was known to the Society, which had a few strong plants in stock. Later in the same year it was reported that the chairman had distributed large quantities of seed in the northern districts of the colony. A letter-to-the-editor published in a June 1884 Sydney Morning Herald issue and received from Fred Turner - who worked at the Brisbane Botanic Gardens from 1874, before becoming Curator of the Acclimatisation Society's Bowen Park and then moving to the Sydney Botanic Gardens in 1880 - reveals that the Brisbane Gardens had sometime previously received seeds of the raintree. An article in a December 1932 issue of The Queenslander describes a substantial raintree growing there.
From late 1877 Hart was an active member of the Queensland Acclimatisation Society, based in Brisbane, and at Coolshade he established a fine orchard with European and Mediterranean fruits, Chinese fruits, mangoes, and coconuts using material obtained almost exclusively via the Society. In April 1884 The Brisbane Courier reported on a visit to agricultural properties in the Mossman River district, the foremost of which was Coolshade. In December 1887 the agricultural reporter for The Queenslander newspaper described Hart as an enthusiast in horticulture, and his garden a experimental station. In both articles the extensive range of plants described as growing at the property did not include the raintree.
When Hart died in 1900 he left Coolshade and its orchard - located on just over 10 acres (4.12ha) on the Mossman River to the north of the site of St David's and the raintree avenue - to his half brother. In 1907 the title for the triangular parcel of land over which the canopy of the eastern line of raintrees spreads was transferred by this brother to Edward Taffs, Hart's brother died in 1915, leaving Coolshade to a daughter of Taffs.
","criteria":"St David's Anglican Church is set behind an avenue of substantial, fern-clad raintrees (Samanea saman) forming an archway along part of the Captain Cook Highway (Foxton Avenue) that takes road travellers out of the centre of Mossman toward Daintree. These trees and the beautiful arbour they make, as well as the unusual use of stone and Byzantine-influenced design details in the church, make an important aesthetic contribution to the town of Mossman.
|St David's Church, constructed in stages between 1912 and 1952, is important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history related to the spread of the Anglican Christian denomination. The lengthy construction period combined with the perseverance and dedication of the local minister, Reverend Taffs, exemplifies the pattern of the development, establishment and resilience of the former Anglican Diocese of Carpentaria (1900-1996) in far northern Queensland. The church embodies its ongoing struggle to establish a presence and raise funds for building projects during the first half of the twentieth century. Also the self-reliance that many ministers and their parishioners displayed is reflected in the idiosyncratic nature of the design and materials of St David's Church at Mossman.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion E | Criterion A","criteria_definitions":"The place is important because of its aesthetic significance | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30790,"place_ref":602758,"name":"Mossman Shire Hall and Douglas Shire Council Chambers (former)","alternate_name":null,"street_address":"8-14 Mill Street","suburb":"MOSSMAN","lga":"DOUGLAS SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2010-08-06","description":"The Mossman Shire Hall and Douglas Shire Council Chambers (former) is a large rendered concrete building located on a level site in the centre of Mossman at the intersection of Mill Street (the main street of the town), Junction Road and the Captain Cook Highway. The building is orientated east-west extending along Mill Street. Its western end comprises two storeys with its principal south-west elevation truncated to face the intersection and giving it prominence as a civic building in the centre of the town. Retail premises (originally four shops) are located on the ground floor with offices (originally the council offices) on the first floor. The hall and its ancillary facilities including supper lounge, stage and fly tower occupy the remainder of the building and are located east of the shops along Mill Street.
The shop fronts are protected by a cantilevered awning which has early pressed metal edge detailing; the western-most shop has an entrance in the principal (south-west) elevation, and the remaining three shop fronts have entrances off MiIl Street. Three of the four shop fronts retain large metal framed display windows with recessed timber entrance doors and fixed panels (originally glazing) above. Walls surrounding the display windows have a dado of dark green glazed tiling decorated with geometric glazed tile patterns in pale green, red and black. The eastern shop front (to the former café) has been replaced with aluminium-framed glazing and entrance door and alternate tiling.
Above the awning, the north-west, south-west and southern elevations to the offices have been articulated with classical detailing including pilasters and entablature. To the north-west and southern elevation the pilasters are paired with smaller pilasters of the Corinthian order. Eight multi-light steel-framed casement pairs with fanlights provide natural light and ventilation to the offices; one on the north-west elevation, three on the south-west elevation and four on the southern elevation. The gabled roof over the offices is concealed behind a parapet which steps up along the south-west elevation and to which three flagpoles are fixed.
The cantilevered awning extends east over the entrance to the first floor offices, the entrance to the hall and the ticket office. A pair of three panelled timber doors provides access to the first floor offices and a roller door has replaced earlier entrance doors to the hall. The parapet above this section of the building is articulated with pilasters and a simple cornice and conceals a skillion roof to offices that are a later addition between the former council offices and hall.
East of the hall foyer the building line steps back from the street alignment. The hall floor is approximately 600mm higher than street level and has two pairs of doors reached by pairs of stairs. The doors are set within concrete block walls which have replaced lower level banks of louvres that extended to the ceiling of the hall. This southern façade of the hall has a skillion-roofed verandah which is a later addition. The gabled roof to the hall is partially concealed behind a parapet along the southern elevation and has two clerestory lights along both sides.
The walls to fly tower and southern dressing room are featureless apart from four small high level multi-light casements to the dressing room and a single window to the rear of the stage. The fly tower has a gabled roof, while the rear of the stage, a skillion roof. A parapet conceals a skillion roof over the dressing room.
The eastern elevation of the building is largely featureless with three high level multi-light casements, a fourth casement at the back of the fly tower and a window to the rear of the dressing room. Three openings on the eastern elevation give access to the basement below the stage. The opening at the southern end has a pair of ledged doors, while the other two openings have been altered with infill panels and later doors.
Adjacent to the north-east corner of the building is a small toilet block which is a later addition and partially conceals the early rear wall of the dressing room. The northern elevation of the supper lounge is clad in patterned board sheeting which appears to be a later addition. The kitchen adjacent to the supper lounge is clad in timber weatherboards. The northern elevation of the office and shop components has been substantially altered with concrete block additions.
Commercial premises
Interior partitions between the shops are of rendered concrete and the partition between the shops at the western end of the building has been removed, to form one larger retail space. Despite this change, the four former shop volumes are apparent and each retains early decorative cornices and ceiling roses. The third shop from the west was a former chemist and retains early timber cupboards and shelving. Alterations and additions have been made at the rear of the shops.
First floor Chambers (former council offices)
The stair hall leading to the first floor offices from Mill Street consists of 25 treads in a single flight with timber handrails fixed to the walls. The early office layout has been altered with additional partitions added and openings made in early walls. Some v-jointed tongue and groove partitions and early ceilings and geometric patterned cornices remain under later wall linings and above suspended ceilings. The timber cabinets at the enquiry counter appear to be early.
The Hall
The overall fabric of the hall is intact, although a few alterations have been made. The ceilings retain features such as decorative ceiling roses and cornices with geometric designs. The proscenium arch has elaborate mouldings with abstract geometric designs. Pairs of eight-light french doors opening to the north into the supper lounge are intact (although a few lights have been replaced), as is the timber floor. The walls at the rear of the hall are clad in later perforated acoustic corrugated steel sheets. The southern side of the hall has concrete block infill between structural concrete pillars with banks of louvres above the walls. Female toilets at the rear of the hall are an addition. The supper lounge and kitchen area retains its original form but appears to have no original features.
Stage area
The timber stage is approximately one metre above the hall floor. It has a raked floor and has been extended and possibly covers a former orchestra pit. The dressing rooms at either side of the stage have concrete walls, remain largely intact and follow the original plan. Steps lead down from this level to toilets which also can be accessed from the hall. One bathroom has been refitted. Underneath the stage are storage rooms accessed from outside.
","history":"The Mossman Shire Hall and Douglas Shire Council Chambers (former), constructed 1936-1937, is a substantial civic building that reflects the importance of the sugar industry to north Queensland during the interwar period and is associated with the ascendancy of Mossman as a commercial and administrative centre and the decline of Port Douglas as an early regional centre. The hall also demonstrates the pattern of construction of civic buildings for local government purposes during the 1930s using funds from the Queensland Government Unemployment Relief Scheme.
The town of Mossman lies inland from Port Douglas, on the flood-plain of the Mossman River between the Great Dividing Range and the coast, about 70 kilometres north of Cairns. Port Douglas was established in 1877 as an alternative to Cairns as a service port to the Hodgkinson goldfield, which had been proclaimed on 15 June 1876. With the construction of the Cairns-Kuranda railway line in 1882-1891, Port Douglas gradually declined as a town and port. The Mossman district, although initially taken up as homestead selections supplying fodder, maize and tropical fruits to the goldfields, converted to sugar-growing in the 1890s and prospered in the early twentieth century. During these formative years, the region was part of the Douglas Divisional Board (established in 1880) but was replaced by Douglas Shire Council on 30 March 1903 after the Local Authorities Act 1902 abolished divisional boards.
The township of Mossman was created from a private subdivision made following the establishment of the Mossman Central Mill on the Mossman River in 1894-1895 under the Sugar Works Guarantee Act 1893. Sugar production in the Mossman district expanded rapidly from this time. Despite this, in 1910 the township comprised little more than the Exchange Hotel, a store, butcher's shop, hall and timber church, clustered around the sugar mill. These buildings and most of nearby Port Douglas were severely damaged by a cyclone on 16 March 1911. In the aftermath, and with the continued increase of both transient and permanent workers in the sugar industry, businesses at Port Douglas gradually gravitated to Mossman. In the 1920s the Court House and banking facilities moved from Port Douglas to Mossman, and by the end of the decade Mossman was the administrative centre of Douglas Shire.
Despite the growing population in Mossman, Douglas Shire councillors continued to meet in Port Douglas. In 1932, however, the Queensland Government amended the Local Authorities Act so that governments-in-council could subdivide shires into divisions for election purposes. As a result, the Douglas Shire was divided into five divisions and all but one of the new divisions had one council member. Division three (Mossman River to South Mossman River) had two council members which gave residents of Mossman greater council representation and influence. A new council was elected in 1933 and RD Rex was elected Chairman. Moves to improve town facilities began immediately, with the Mossman Chamber of Commerce requesting that Mossman be declared a municipality so that water services could be upgraded and street lights electrified. While Mossman never became a municipality, it did become the administrative and commercial hub of Douglas Shire, and from 1937, the seat of the Douglas Shire Council.
In August 1934 Rex proposed council borrow £4,250 and use subsidies from the Queensland Government's Unemployment Relief Scheme to build a new shire hall and council offices at Mossman on a 1 acre (0.4ha) site in the centre of the town, to which council had held the title since 1903. The Unemployment Relief Scheme was part of the Forgan Smith Labour Government's strategy to support employment. Many civic buildings and infrastructure projects were established across Queensland using this scheme, the Intermittent Relief Work Scheme, and projects managed by the Bureau of Industry. Other extant shire halls in Queensland that were constructed during this period include Gladstone Town Hall (1933-1934, QHR 601333), Gayndah Soldier's Memorial Hall and Council Chambers (1935, QHR 602124), Bowen Shire Council Offices (1935-1937), Johnstone Shire Hall (1935-1938, QHR 601579), and Goondiwindi Shire Hall (1937-1938, QHR 600531).
In Mossman, a special meeting was convened to discuss Rex's proposal. His vision to construct a hall, shire offices and commercial shops (to make the venture viable) was supported by other councillors and the proposal went to tender in October 1934. The council was split regarding the choice of design but eventually selected plans by well-known Cairns architects Richard Hill and AJH Taylor. Hill & Taylor, in partnership from 1927 to c1940 and then 1945 to 1952, designed a number of prominent north Queensland civic buildings between the first and second world wars, including the Cairns City Council Chambers (1929-1930, QHR 601576), Cairns Post Office (1930), Johnstone Shire Hall in Innisfail (1935-1938, QHR 601579) and a number of country hospitals, including Mossman District Hospital (c1930, QHR 602713) and Proserpine Hospital (1939-1940, QHR 601573).
However, the process of finalising the design and layout was protracted. Continued deliberations regarding building components, style and plans caused delays and friction within the council, and between council and the architects. The final proposal stipulated that the new shire hall complex would comprise four commercial shops, council offices upstairs, a hall, supper lounge and ample stage accommodation. Costs were not to exceed £8,500. Three additional sets of plans were submitted before they were sent to the Public Works Department for approval. Its report outlined a range of issues that required attention and the architects were asked to amend plans and get their representative in Brisbane to liaise with them. Although tenders for the construction of the hall were called in July 1935 it was not until November 1935 that builders Arthur Zillfleisch and Tom Booth were nominated. Further problems saw the tender to build the hall eventually being awarded to Messrs Tarmey & Euhus, the firm that had submitted the lowest tender price of £9,896.17.6. Despite continued problems during the construction period, the building was finally completed in 1937 and officially opened on 9 June 1937.
The new shire hall had four shops on the lower floor, including a chemist and café. The incorporation of retail spaces into public halls, theatres and large civic buildings was popular during the 1920s and 1930s - a means of maximising the income that could be derived from these large and expensive projects. The shire halls and council offices at Goondiwindi, Innisfail and Bowen, for example, all had ground floor, street-accessed retail spaces included as part of the design. If the building contained a public hall or theatre, one of the shops inevitably was occupied by a café.
The Mossman Shire Hall, with its drop screen, stage and orchestra pit and dressing rooms, was subsequently used for a range of community events and functions. In 1938, alterations and additions were made by Hill & Taylor. These included: extending the awning to the pavement from the hall, a new area for storing chairs on the northern side of the building, new kitchen facilities in the commercial premises, and renewing flashing and box guttering on the southern side of building. During World War II, the hall was used by troops as a dance hall.
In the 1970s, additions and alterations to the hall included enclosing the louvred wall on Mill Street with concrete block to reduce the noise from the tram line (which passes within two metres of the building) and to block out natural light.
In 1996 Douglas Shire Council moved into new offices in Front Street, Mossman and vacated the offices on the upper level of the 1937 building. In 2008 Douglas Shire, Mulgrave Shire and Cairns City were amalgamated under the Cairns Regional Council, with one representative from the former Douglas Shire. The former Mossman Shire Hall is still used for a variety of community events, while the commercial premises on the ground floor are occupied as shops or by community project groups. In June 2008 the entire former Douglas Shire was declared an iconic place under the Iconic Queensland Places Act 2008. In the gazetted declaration (No. 52, 20 June 2008) the built environment values listed as being notable and worthy of preservation include those related to Mossman being the administrative centre of the Shire.
","criteria":"The Mossman Shire Hall and Douglas Shire Council Chambers (former) are important in demonstrating the pattern of Queensland's history, in particular the construction of civic buildings during the 1930s assisted by funding from relief and job-creation schemes. Civic projects - including shire and town halls, offices and chambers; community swimming pools; roads; bridges; and street and park beautification schemes - were undertaken throughout Queensland at this period as a result of these schemes, and as a group these places are important in articulating a particular historical period, the impact of State government initiatives to combat the economic depression, and design concepts popular at the time.
The Mossman Shire Hall and Douglas Shire Council Chambers (former) is a substantial building for a small administrative centre, and in this it is important in illustrating the era of prosperity accompanying the expansion of the north Queensland sugar industry during the 1920s and 1930s, and the shift during these years of the administrative heart of Douglas Shire from Port Douglas to Mossman in the State's northern-most sugar-growing district.
|The former Mossman Shire Hall and Douglas Shire Council Chambers (former) building is a good representative example of a regional civic complex. It remains substantially intact and is important in illustrating the principal characteristics of a 1930s civic building located in the centre of town on the corner of Mossman's principal streets, combining council offices and meeting rooms, retail spaces, and a large public hall with entry foyer, stage, fly-tower and dressing rooms. Early features include: steel-framed, multi-paned casement windows to the former offices; a cantilevered street awning with decorative metal edging; shop fronts with decorative ceramic tiles; timber cabinetry in the former chemist's shop; decorative plaster work to the ceilings of the former council offices; clerestory lights/ventilation panels in the roof of the hall; and timber floors throughout.
The Mossman Shire Hall and Douglas Shire Council Chambers (former) is significant as a building designed by the architectural partnership of Hill and Taylor, prominent local architects in north Queensland during the interwar period, and contributes to our understanding of their portfolio of work across this part of the state.
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places"}, {"heritage_type":"State Heritage","site_id":30934,"place_ref":602803,"name":"Daintree Inn/Former Exchange Hotel","alternate_name":"Exchange Hotel Mossman","street_address":"2 Front Street","suburb":"MOSSMAN","lga":"DOUGLAS SHIRE COUNCIL","register_entry_date":"2012-11-09","description":"The Daintree Inn (former Exchange Hotel) is located on a prominent corner site of the main fiveways intersection of Mossman, a small town approximately 75 km north of Cairns in far north Queensland. Bounded by Mill Street to the north and Front Street to the west, the building has an L-shaped plan and is built to the street boundaries, with multiple entrances from both streets. A driveway runs from Front Street along the southern side of the building to a rear courtyard and outdoor bar area, separating the hotel from a two-storey commercial building. An easement from Mill Street runs along the eastern boundary of the hotel site, dividing it from a long, gable roofed building on the adjacent property.
\nThe hotel is a large, two storey timber building, truncated at the corner, with wide verandahs to both streets over the footpaths and to the rear. The street elevations are surmounted by decorative timber parapets with simple triangular pediments, behind which a timber framed roof slopes to the rear, clad in metal roof sheeting. External walls are clad in timber chamferboards and the first floor verandah walls are single skin with exposed studwork and cross bracing. On the ground floor, there is a section of diagonal boarding and evidence of an enclosed former doorway on the west elevation. The eastern wing has a timber framed floor, while the remainder of the building sits on a concrete slab and ground floor verandah posts have raised concrete footings.
\nThe location of the main entrance to the former ground floor lounge, now a dining room, is indicated by a gable feature in the northern verandah roof. The main entrance door is set back within a small alcove with elaborate timber surround, comprising square pilasters and a shallow triangular pediment. The double timber door with large glass windows is divided into four lights on each leaf, surrounded by fan and sidelights made of multiple rectangular panes of textured glass (sidelights sheeted over). Other early doors and windows on the street elevations have similar fanlights above, and early windows are timber framed four-light casement windows with textured glass. The rear first floor verandah is enclosed by a continuous band of casements and some side windows retain metal window hoods.
\nOrnamentation is modest, featuring a diamond motif evident around the main entrance doorway; in the feature panels of the first floor verandah balustrade; and underneath the painted verandah signage, where there are traces of diamond shapes that had been formed by attached timber battens (now removed). Verandah posts are chamfered with decorative timber capitals on both floors. Recent signage with the words \"Daintree Inn\" and \"Est 1896\" have been attached to the parapet - these and other modern signage boards are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nThe building comprises public spaces on the ground floor and accommodation on the first floor. The main bar occupies the prime position in the front corner of the building, with a shop occupying the remainder of the Front Street (southern) wing. The Mill Street (eastern) wing comprises a small private bar and a large dining room containing the main staircase to the first floor. Behind the dining room, a passage below the rear verandah contains a second staircase and connects the main bar, staff and service areas, the dining room, the rear courtyard and a kitchen at the far eastern end. The first floor has a central corridor running the length of the two wings with rooms on either side and passages connecting the front and rear verandahs. At the end of each wing, rooms have been converted into staff accommodation and a manager's residence. Shared toilet and bathroom facilities adjoin the rear verandah - female amenities in the centre of the eastern wing and male amenities at the south end of the southern wing.
\nThe main bar is a large open room with three entrance doors - one each to Mill and Front streets and one at the truncated corner. Large windows provide views to the surrounding streetscape. Having undergone many alterations, the bar layout, furniture and finishes are not early or original and do not have cultural heritage significance. At the southern end of the room there is evidence of the location of early internal walls, and an early ceiling with two fibrous plaster ceiling roses remains. A doorway at the southern end of the bar area connects through to the adjacent shop. Doors in the eastern wall lead to the rear passageway and to the private bar.
\nThe shop (operating as a bottle shop in 2012) has also undergone many alterations, with evidence of a central wall having been removed to form one large area from two smaller shops. The ceilings feature circular plaster ceiling roses and decorative cornices. The remaining shop fit-out, furniture, shop-front glazing and entrance doors are recent and not of cultural heritage significance. A modern cold room has been installed at the rear of the northern shop area, while the rear of the southern shop area has been extended to the east, with timber verandah posts visible in the structure of the eastern wall.
\nThe private bar is a narrow room with the bar along the western wall. Apart from the ceiling, which has two ceiling roses and decorative cornices, the fit-out, furniture and finishes of this bar are recent and not of cultural heritage significance.
\nThe dining room occupies most of the ground floor area of the eastern wing. It retains many original and early features, such as joinery, a decorative plaster ceiling with delicate floral border and cornices, and ceiling roses matching those in the private bar and southern main bar. A wall with a large opening divides the space; with traces of a former folding door system evident in the floor and lintel (doors have been removed). The main entrance door from Mill Street opens into the western half of the room, and in the south-west corner is the main staircase, constructed from dark-stained silky oak with a small cupboard beneath. A door with fan and sidelights opposite the main entry door leads to the rear passageway. Walls throughout the room are lined with vertical V-jointed tongue and groove boards up to picture rail height and plastered above. Timber skirtings and architraves have a simple chamfered detail. The southern wall has been modified at the eastern end, to provide a doorway and two servery windows into the adjacent kitchen. The floor is polished timber floorboards, with a section of bare concrete flooring adjacent to the kitchen.
\nThe rear passageway features timber verandah posts along the southern side and a secondary timber staircase to the first floor. The underside of the first floor verandah structure remains visible. The kitchen and storage areas constructed at the eastern end of the passageway are not of cultural heritage significance. Built up against the rear verandahs, the rear service area consists of a series of single storey blockwork structures with overlapping timber-framed roofs clad in metal sheeting. They contain loading and storage spaces, toilets, a staff office and a small outdoor bar. None of the structures with modern fabric are of cultural heritage significance.
\nThroughout the interior of the first floor, floors are polished timber and walls are vertical timber tongue and groove boards finished with chamfered timber detailing - picture rail, architraves and wide skirtings. Generally, flat sheeting with timber cover battens line the walls between bedrooms and the ceilings. Internal doors are high-waisted timber panelled doors with early door hardware. All unaltered bedrooms have a timber built-in corner cupboard and small basin. At the intersection of the two wings there is a lounge room with built-in cupboards along two walls.
\nA number of internal modifications have been made in order to provide staff accommodation including: enclosure of the end of the central passageway, alterations to walls and doorways, enclosure of verandah space and installation of facilities such as kitchens, bathrooms and a laundry room. These modifications are not of cultural heritage significance.
\nThe front verandah is approximately 3.6 metres wide with a two-rail slat balustrade. Two narrow fire escape gates remain in the balustrade structure (one each in the centre of the north and west verandahs). Bedroom doors opening on to the verandah are low-waisted timber French doors with four lights per leaf and retaining early door hardware. Two sash windows are located adjacent to the diagonal north-west corner of the building. All doors and windows opening on to the verandah have textured glass. The southern end of the west verandah has been screened off from public access, and the eastern end of the north verandah has been enclosed to form a communal kitchen (not of cultural heritage significance). The toilets and bathrooms off the rear verandah have undergone some internal alterations and upgrades.
\nThe courtyard area in the south-east corner of the hotel grounds contains an in-ground swimming pool, garden beds, palm trees and covered areas. None of these features are of cultural heritage significance.
\nViews to surrounding mountains and landscapes are obtained from the first floor verandahs of the Daintree Inn, as well as views of the town and the Mossman Mill chimney stack. As one of the largest buildings in the centre of town, the hotel has a strong landmark presence within the Mossman streetscape, and overlooks a triangular grassed area formed by the unusual and picturesque configuration of roads at the heart of Mossman - where five roads and a tramway intersect. The style of the hotel is complimented by other 1930s buildings in the vicinity, including the Mossman Shire Hall [QHR 602758] opposite on Mill Street, the former Jack and Newell building (occupied by Mossman Hardware in 2012) on the corner of Junction Road and Mill and Mossman Streets, and the former National Bank of Australasia in Mill Street [QHR 601542].
","history":"The Daintree Inn, formerly known as the Exchange Hotel, is the second timber hotel to stand on the prominent site at the corner of Front and Mill streets in Mossman, a sugar town located about 75 km north of Cairns. Built in 1934-35 to replace the first Exchange Hotel (c1896), which was badly damaged in a March 1934 cyclone, the second Exchange Hotel was designed to appeal to a tourist clientele. Tourism to the district increased after the opening of the Cook Highway in 1933, with road trips to Mossman and the town of Daintree among the local attractions promoted to visitors to far north Queensland.
Mossman lies inland from Port Douglas, on the flood-plain of the Mossman River between the Great Dividing Range and the coast. Cedar stands on the Mossman River were logged from 1874 and agricultural settlers followed the timber getters from the late 1870s, supplying fodder, maize, rice and tropical fruits to the Palmer River (1873) and Hodgkinson (1876) goldfields. [1]
Port Douglas was established in 1877 as a port for the Hodgkinson goldfield and Mossman was founded in the mid 1880s with the subdivision of land, located south of the Mossman River, owned by Daniel Hart and Thomas Wilson. The Daintree Inn/former Exchange Hotel stands on part of Portion 72, selected by Wilson in 1879. Although early selectors attempted mixed agriculture, poor soil and high rainfall meant that the land around Mossman was more suited to sugar cane cultivation.
Initially, Queensland sugar cane was grown on large plantations, using indentured South Sea Islander labour, and nine sugar plantations (each with their own mill to crush sugar cane) were established in far north Queensland between 1878 and 1891. However, six of these had closed by 1891. [2] The Brie Brie sugar plantation near Mossman operated a sugar mill between 1884 and 1888.
Several factors influenced the decline of the plantation system and its replacement by small farms supplying large central sugar mills. A drop in sugar prices in 1884, progressive restrictions on the use of non-European labour in the sugar industry from 1885, and government promotion of closer settlement by European ‘yeoman' farmers (owners of smaller landholdings), led to an end in the trade in South Sea Islander labour. The 1893 Sugar Works Guarantee Act provided loans to groups of farmers who mortgaged their land to the government, formed a company and built a co-operatively owned sugar mill to process their cane.
In far north Queensland, government funding was provided for the Mulgrave Central Mill (Gordonvale, first crush 1896) and the Mossman Central Mill (first crush 1897). The Mossman Central Mill Company, which was formed in 1894, purchased 20 acres of Wilson's Portion 72 in 1896, and Mill Street, which ran east to the mill from the main north-south road, became the commercial heart of Mossman.
The sugar industry spurred Mossman's development. Two galvanised iron hotels were moved to Front Street from Craiglie in 1894, to become the Royal Hotel and Mossman Hotel, and the Queens Hotel was built in 1896. [3] Mossman was linked to Port Douglas by a tramway in 1900 (sugar was shipped from Port Douglas from 1897 to 1958), and a tramway depot was located at the corner of Mill and Front Streets, near the Mossman Triangle. [4] The town had five hotels by 1910, including the Exchange, Mossman, Royal, Post Office and Queens. [5] After the 1911 cyclone damaged buildings in both Mossman and Port Douglas, businesses and government buildings located at Port Douglas gravitated to Mossman. [6]
One of the early sugar suppliers to the Mossman Central Mill was Denis O'Brien, whose wife Teresa ran the first Exchange Hotel. O'Brien operated a hotel in Cooktown with Teresa from 1874, moved to Port Douglas in 1877 and opened the North Australian Hotel (now the Central Hotel). [7] In 1893 O'Brien selected land near Mossman. [8] He grew sugar and was a director of the Mossman Central Mill, with his son Edward Joseph O'Brien (one of eight children) later serving as chairman of directors for many years.
FW Buchanan built the first Exchange Hotel for the O'Brien's c1896, [9] and Teresa O'Brien is listed in the 1897 Pugh's Almanac as running the Exchange Hotel in Mossman. In 1904 the eldest O'Brien daughter, Kate, married Daniel J Kirwan, who became the licensee of the hotel in 1905, the year Denis O'Brien died at his property ‘Finlayvale'.
The Exchange Hotel was originally one storey, but had a second storey by 16 March 1911 when a cyclone destroyed the upper floor. The hotel was repaired and continued to serve the town, despite being damaged again in a 1920 cyclone. Licensees of the hotel between 1914 and 1932 included EJ O'Brien, Sarah Ann Agnew, William Hyslop, Ellen Maud Petersen, Helena Norman McKenna, Teresa Nugent (nee O'Brien) and Ellen Constance O'Brien. [10]
Meanwhile, government encouragement of the sugar industry meant that there were 4238 small canegrowers in Queensland by 1911. [11] Most of Queensland's existing sugar mills were established by 1925, and an influx of cane-cutters, including southern Europeans, before and after World War I boosted the population and economy of far north Queensland. Many of the cane-cutters went on to operate their own farms. The Queensland sugar industry flourished in the 1920s and 1930s, due to government subsidies. When combined with the Forgan Smith Labor Government's Unemployment Relief Scheme (civic building and infrastructure projects), a burst of building activity resulted in Mossman and other far north Queensland sugar towns.
In the 1930s economic activity in Mossman was further increased with the opening of a new hospital (previously located in Port Douglas) in 1930; the completion of the Cook Highway between Cairns and Mossman in 1933 (as part of the Unemployment Relief Scheme); and the opening of a new Shire Hall and Offices [QHR 602758] in 1937. Mossman was by now the administrative centre of the Douglas Shire (established in 1903 to replace the Douglas Divisional Board).
During this period of prosperity for Mossman a cyclone on 12 March 1934 once again heavily damaged the top storey of the Exchange Hotel, but this time the whole building was replaced, with the timber sourced from the Daintree Mill. [12] In April 1934 tenders were invited for the erection of a hotel in timber and concrete at Mossman, for Mrs T Nugent, the architect Vibert McKirdy Brown of Atherton. Tenders were also called for the removal of the old Exchange Hotel. [13] Teresa Nugent was the daughter of Denis and Teresa O'Brien, and along with her sisters Anne Kenny and Bridget Fynn, assumed ownership of the land on which the hotel stood in August 1934.
VM Brown was a well known local architect who practiced in Far North Queensland from the 1920s to 1940s. Born in South Africa c.1887, [14] by 1916 he was living in north Queensland where he enlisted and served in the army during World War I, listing his pre-war trade as ‘contractor'. [15] From 1925 Brown advertised himself as an architect in Atherton [16] and over the next two decades he completed a wide variety of buildings throughout the Cairns and Atherton Tablelands area. Characteristics of Brown's works include art deco and simplified classical style ornamentation, particularly raised banding on facades.
Brown had a long association with the Atherton District Hospital Board, and was responsible for many of the Atherton Hospital buildings constructed in the 1920s and 30s. Brown also designed many buildings for the Catholic Church in the region, including St Augustine's Church School and Convent at Mossman (1934). He also designed several buildings for the Returned Sailors' and Soldiers' Imperial League of Australia, including their club rooms on the Esplanade in Cairns (1938). [17] In his home town of Atherton, Brown designed many civic and commercial buildings, including the Tinaroo Shire Council Chambers (1928), various shops, and the Grand Hotel (1933) on the corner of Main and Vernon streets. In Mossman, he designed the former Jack and Newell Building (1936), which stands opposite the Daintree Inn/former Exchange Hotel on the corner of Mossman Street, Mill Street and Junction Road. Other notable works by Brown include an extension to Boland's Department Store in Cairns (1936, included within QHR 602536), the Rex Theatre in Cairns (1938), and Mareeba Fire Station (1939). [18] Brown ceased practicing as an architect in the late 1940s and died in 1957, aged 70. [19]
The new Exchange Hotel capitalised upon the existing far north Queensland tourist trade, which had been increasing since the 1880s. During the 19th century far north Queensland was seen as a romantic, exotic and tropical destination, with visitors mainly interested in the natural beauties of the area, such as landscapes, numerous waterfalls and the Chillagoe Caves. The health benefits of the spa at Innot Springs, and the coolness of mountain locations of Herberton and Kuranda, were also attractive. [20]
However, transport infrastructure was limited to rough tracks and railways constructed to access mining, timber and agricultural resources. It was not until the 1920s, with the rise of the motor car and the construction of tourist roads by the Queensland Government, that tourism accelerated in the region.
In the 1920s and 30s, Cairns was the major entry point for visitors to far north Queensland, and had an established reputation as a tourist centre and ‘tropical winter resort.' [21] Arriving by the boat load, the number of tourists needing accommodation in Cairns often exceeded the number of ‘first class' hotel rooms available, with those missing out having to sleep on board their ships. [22] The completion of the Brisbane-Cairns railway link in 1924 (called the ‘Sunshine Route' from 1929) opened another option for reaching Cairns. By 1925, the Hides Hotel and the Strand Hotel were the only two first class accommodation houses in Cairns, and the need for a greater number and higher standard of accommodation options to foster the tourist trade, on the Atherton Tablelands as well as Cairns, was becoming more widely recognised. [23]
From 1891 tourists could access the Atherton Tablelands by rail, but the construction of the Gillies Highway (Gordonvale to Yungaburra) in 1926 enabled the White Car Line to transport tourists by road, increasing access to attractions like Lake Barrine, Lake Eacham, the Hypipamee crater and the Curtain Fig Tree [QHR 602734] at Yungaburra. Other popular attractions in the region in the interwar period included the Barron Falls, the Maze, Fairyland Tea Gardens, and Dodd's butterfly collection at Kuranda, the ‘Jungle' at Malanda, and Paronella Park [QHR 602017] south of Innisfail. Favoured seaside resorts in the 1920s included Double Island Beach, Yorkey's Knob, Turtle Bay, Second Beach, False Cape, and Browns Bay, while visitation to the Great Barrier Reef occurred with launch trips to Green Island. [24] The Palmerston Highway (Innisfail to Ravenshoe) opened in 1935 and allowed road access to the southern tablelands.
As more places became accessible, tourist hotels were constructed to attract and accommodate visitors. Two of the largest hotels in far north Queensland were constructed at Yungaburra and Malanda. The Lake Eacham Hotel at Yungaburra [QHR 600473], originally built in 1910 after the arrival of the railway line from Cairns, was considerably extended and refurbished in time for the opening of the Gillies Highway, assisting the town to develop as a tourist destination and a gateway to the Tablelands. [25] The Malanda Hotel had its major phase of construction in 1911 after the arrival of the railway line, but it too benefited greatly from the increased tourist trade brought about by the Gillies Highway. Already a large, two storey timber hotel, it underwent an expansion in 1928 that increased the number of bedrooms to 60 and included the addition of a ‘tropical lounge'. [26]
Apart from refurbishments and extensions, many new hotels (or total rebuilds of existing hotels) of various sizes were constructed throughout far north Queensland in the late-1920s and 1930s, including: the Tully's Stratford Hotel (1926, now Barron River Hotel); Ravenshoe Hotel (1927); Criterion Hotel at South Johnstone (1930); Hambledon Hotel at Edmonton (approx 1930); several hotels in Cairns, Innisfail and Gordonvale; the Grand Hotel in Atherton (1933); the Silkwood Hotel (1938); plus the Royal Hotel (1932) and the Post Office Hotel (1932) in Mossman. [27]
The Mossman area‘s scenery was promoted as an attraction in the 1920s. It was accessed from Port Douglas by road or tramway, and cars and drivers could be hired in Mossman. [28] However, in 1931 work began on the Cook Highway, a scenic coastal road from Cairns to the Daintree. When the section from Cairns to Mossman opened in December 1933, [29] the Cook Highway replaced the Bump Track as the land route from Mossman to Cairns, and enabled tourists to travel on the White Car Line from Cairns to Port Douglas and Mossman and back within a day. [30] Prior to the Highway's completion the Minister for Public Works, Henry Adam Bruce, stated that it ‘should prove to be one of the finest tourist roads in Australia'. [31] From Mossman, tourists could take a bus to the dairying centre of Daintree, or pay for car trips to the beach at Port Douglas, Mossman Gorge and Mt Demi, and other scenic spots. [32]
By 1935 the Mossman Chamber of Commerce noted that the Cook Highway had been responsible for great business activity and building in Mossman, and that ‘the Exchange Hotel (damaged by the cyclone last year) has been entirely rebuilt, and is now one of the largest, finest, and most up-to-date in appearance and has done much to improve the look of the town'. [33] An advertisement for the hotel that year pronounced ‘This newly-erected Hotel is one of the most modern in North Queensland. All rooms open on to [sic] spacious balconies. Running water in every room. Septic systems. Commodious Lounges and delightful ball-room'. [34]
On 10 April 1935 the Cairns Post noted that the Exchange Hotel bar was open, with the building being put in order to accommodate boarders, ‘and [it] will supply a long felt want during the tourist season'. [35] Soon afterwards it was reported that the ‘new, modern' Exchange Hotel would be open for the Easter holidays, and that ‘this magnificent building is one of the most up-to-date hotels in North Queensland and offers something absolutely new in accommodation and service.' [36] In June that year the same newspaper commented that ‘with implicit faith in the great expansion of Mossman and the stability of this wonderfully fertile district, the owner, Mrs D. O'Brien, has had erected this really palatial hotel'. It was also claimed that the hotel was the ideal rendezvous for tourists, who could by car view ‘some of the finest scenery in Australia'. [37]
The June 1935 article reported that the hotel had 12' (3.7 m) verandahs to the front and rear, with ladies' and gentlemen's bathrooms and showers on the rear verandah (Mill Street wing and Front Street wing respectively), along with lavatories (water closets) connected to a septic system. The remainder of the rear verandah was enclosed with casement windows, while the front verandah offered scenic views, including of the Good Shepherd, a rock formation on Mount Demi. The ground floor possessed a bar of large dimensions, with an Amatice refrigerator of ‘heroic' size in the centre, encircled by counters. There were parlours to the rear of the bar and also two small alcoves for cards. There was a ‘very roomy' downstairs lounge, separated from a coffee room by folding doors. These doors could be folded back to create a dance floor which occupied two thirds of the Mill Street frontage. A main stairway ascended to the first floor corridor from the lounge. Also on the ground floor were a dining room and kitchen opposite the coffee room (in a rear wing, since demolished, off the east end of the Mill Street wing), and a billiard room and shops (a hairdressing salon and a drapers shop according to a c1935 Licensing Inspector's report; these were located at the south end of the Front Street wing). The staff quarters were in a separate detached building (a cottage, extant in 1975 but since demolished).
There were reportedly 31 bedrooms (1940 plans of the hotel show 30) located on the first floor, which were roomy, well ventilated and lit, with a built-in corner wardrobe and corner wash basin, with running water ‘if necessary'. There was a different colour scheme in each bedroom, and a central upstairs lounge had built-in cupboards for linen. Each bedroom opened onto both a central corridor and a verandah. A power house containing a Ruston-Hornsby engine and a generator provided electric lighting and also powered a pump for well water. Lock-up garages were provided. At this time the hotel was under the care and supervision of a company - Mesdames Kenny, Nugent and Fynn. [38]
The Exchange Hotel was part of a pattern of increased hotel luxury in the 1930s. Hotel designs of this decade in Queensland employed a variety of modern styles, including Spanish Mission, Functionalist and Art Deco. Often on corner sites with features such as rounded facades, sweeping horizontal or vertical ornamentation, cantilevered awnings and hipped, tiled roofs, these new hotels offered a higher standard of accommodation and comfort for patrons and guests than older establishments.
Changes to legislation in 1935 completely changed the administration of the liquor laws, which became entrusted to a Licensing Commission, with the immediate objectives of a better distribution of licences throughout the state, and of raising the standard of accommodation both for the requirements of the general public and for tourist traffic. [39] A campaign for the remodelling of licensed premises spread through the state, resulting in the improvement of accommodation offered by both country and city hotels. [40] Typical hotel layouts included a bar (or multiple bars), cold rooms and storage, lounges and parlours, dining room and kitchen on the ground floor, with bedrooms, lounge and shared guest bathroom facilities on the first floor. Large function spaces were made possible by the use of folding doors or partitions between the lounge and dining rooms, and separate entrances for guests and bar patrons continued to be a requirement. [41] The Commission insisted on the provision of services such as running water to all bars and bedrooms, hot and cold if possible. [42]
In both major cities and small towns, the timber hotels of the preceding decades were gradually being renovated or replaced by brick and masonry structures, often after a devastating event such as a fire or cyclone. Particularly in smaller towns, these new hotels were seen as a sign of progress and confidence in the future. It was reported that £500,000 was spent on new hotels and hotel modernisation between November 1935 and May 1938. [43]
The Exchange Hotel in Mossman was completed just prior to the introduction of the 1935 legislation, but incorporated all of the features required of a modern tourist hotel. The style of the building, however, is closer to that of a 1920s hotel, combining older, familiar features (such as timber construction, wide double storey verandahs, single skin verandah walls and French doors) with restrained modern detailing. It bears a resemblance to architect VM Brown's earlier hotel design, the Grand Hotel in Atherton (1933), which was constructed from concrete with timber verandahs. Another similar 1930s hotel is the Hotel Charleville (1932), constructed from brick.
The Exchange Hotel hosted a variety of guests. Despite its more traditional design, it was sufficiently upmarket to be used for civic dinners for the Minister for Public Works, HA Bruce, and later for the Governor General Lord Gowrie and Lady Gowrie, during July 1936. A civic reception was also held for the State Premier, W Forgan Smith, in October 1937, and a civic luncheon was held for the Queensland Governor, Sir Leslie Wilson and Lady Wilson, in June 1939. The hotel also provided accommodation for visiting doctors, bankers, public servants, business people, graziers and other upper-middle class visitors. As an important part of the town's social life, the Exchange Hotel was utilised for dances, Melbourne Cup parties, weddings, World War II fundraising events, and Rotary Club meetings. Commercial travellers also displayed their wares at the hotel, and consulting rooms were let to visiting professionals.
In 1953 the Exchange Hotel was still the ‘best hotel in town' according to the Licensing Inspector, and hotel garages existed on the land south of the Front Street wing by 1957. In 1964 it was reported that the hotel had a mixed clientele, with some travellers and some permanent boarders (sugar mill workers). Licensees at the second Exchange Hotel (after Teresa Nugent, from 1934-1950) have included Domingo Lombarte (1950-52), Minnie Martinez (1952-1957), Albert John McKenzie (1957-58), Angelo Papas (1958-60), Minnie Martinez, Ronald Desmond Neary, and Frederick James Dobbins during the 1960s, and Brian S. Geeves, Luigi Venturato, and Mary Susan Bryen during the 1970s. [44]
Meanwhile, the land on which the hotel stands changed hands, and reduced in size. From the initial one acre owned by Teresa O'Brien, 2 roods, 17 and 6/10ths perches was transferred to Teresa Nugent, Anne Kenny and Bridget Fynn in 1934, with a reduced frontage to Mill Street. Some land at the east end of the Mill Street frontage was sold to Lorenzo and Minnie Martinez in 1956, and they then purchased the land on which the hotel stood in 1957. [45] Land at the south end of the Front Street frontage was sold to the Commonwealth Bank in 1963, leaving the current 1 rood, 16 and 87/100ths perches (1438m2), which was then transferred to Samuel Allen and Sons Limited in 1966; to Ashwick (QLD) No 148 Pty Limited in 1985; to Exchange Hotel Pty Limited in 1987; and to Port Balcombe Pty Limited in 1988. Part of the ground floor was leased to the Totalisator Administration Board (TAB) of Queensland from 1989, and in 2009 the land was sold to Lance Sutton and Melynda Harding.
Along with changes in licensees, hotel owners and land owners, the hotel has been altered on the ground floor since 1935, including expansion of the main bar area. However, the ballroom and retail spaces survive and the parlour spaces are still readable. By the early 1950s the room on the Mill Street side of the main bar contained two parlours, while there was a wet store and another parlour on the Front Street side of the main bar, with a passage to the south; then a billiard room with barber shop, and a shoe store at the south end of the Front Street wing. [46] The parlours on the Mill Street side of the main bar were converted into a private bar c1952 (this was referred to as the Ladies lounge by 1969, and was called the ‘Blue Moon Bar' by 1978), while the Front Street parlour became a bottling room by 1959, a bottle shop (with incorporation of the adjacent passage) c1980 and then an extension of the main bar with a wall demolition c1987.
In 1978 plans were approved for the removal of most of the kitchen and dining wing and its replacement with a smaller kitchen (completed by March 1979), the former coffee room becoming the dining room. In 1987 the bottle shop was moved southwards to the site of the original billiards room, and later a TAB operated from the southernmost shop space. New male and female toilet blocks (plus a dry store) were built to the centre rear of the ground floor in the early 1980s, and in 1988 the existing private bar counter configuration was formed, with the doorway to the street being replaced by a window. Since 1988, the TAB has been replaced by an extension of the bottle shop, for which the wall between the two original shop spaces was removed. The main bar counter, which used to form a deep ‘U' into the room, has been reduced in size.
The first floor has seen fewer changes between 1940 and the present: on the Front Street wing, the end of the corridor plus the four southernmost bedrooms have been converted into the manager's unit, with wall removals and enclosures of parts of the front and rear verandahs. One intact adjacent bedroom is also used by the manager. At the east end of the Mill Street wing, the end of the corridor and two bedrooms have been converted to the owner's unit, with wall removals and a bathroom addition. Two other bedrooms are intact as staff bedrooms, another bedroom (along with part of the rear verandah) is now a laundry, and parts of the front and rear verandah have been enclosed. Eighteen bedrooms were available for public use in 2012. The two original toilet and shower blocks still exist off the rear verandah, although the former ladies' bathroom is now a staff bathroom. The upstairs lounge, main internal stairway and stairway to the rear verandah are also intact. 1940s plans indicated fire escape ladders to the front verandah of each wing; these no longer exist, except for the gates in the balustrade.
Shifts in tourism and transport patterns in the late 20th century led to a decline in demand for accommodation in Mossman, as improvements to the Cook Highway and resorts at Port Douglas meant that tourists were more likely to stay overnight in Cairns or Port Douglas. Although the Bruce Highway was finally bitumened all the way from Brisbane to Cairns in the early 1960s, facilitating faster trips north in the family car, by 1965 it was noted that tourists were passing through Mossman without staying the night. [47] As eco-tourism increased in the Daintree and Cape Tribulation area, Mossman's appeal as a scenic destination in its own right was reduced while Port Douglas evolved as the accommodation centre for the region's tourism.
In 2012 the Exchange Hotel is called the Daintree Inn and it now caters for the family and backpacker market. Two other hotels survive in Mossman: the Post Office Hotel and the Mossman Hotel.
","criteria":"The Daintree Inn/former Exchange Hotel, built in 1934-35 after a cyclone damaged its predecessor, capitalised on the 1933 completion of the Cook Highway. It is important in illustrating the growth and prosperity of the north Queensland tourism and sugar industries during the 1920s and 1930s and the associated development of Mossman as the administrative heart of the Douglas Shire.
The Daintree Inn/former Exchange Hotel also demonstrates a wider pattern of hotel building, rebuilding and modification in Queensland during the 1930s, undertaken with the support of the Queensland Government to encourage tourism.
|The Daintree Inn/former Exchange Hotel is a good regional example of a large timber interwar hotel that demonstrates the principal characteristics of its type. Built to provide comfortable accommodation for tourists, its original form and layout is legible and it retains many features including its lounge and coffee room (ballroom) space and evidence of its bars, parlours and retail facilities on the ground floor. On the first floor it retains: largely intact bedrooms, each with wash basin, opening off a central hall and onto wide verandahs; separate male and female bathroom facilities off the rear verandah; and a central guest lounge. Decorative features include ornamental plaster ceilings in the public ground floor spaces, battened sheet ceilings to the first floor rooms and generously sized timber joinery including built-in cabinets.
|Situated on a prominent corner site, and as the largest of Mossman's three hotels, the place has landmark presence. It also contributes to a streetscape of 1930s buildings, including the Mossman Shire Hall [QHR 602758], the former Jack and Newell building, and the former National Bank of Australasia in Mill Street [QHR 601542].
","criteria_letters":"Criterion A | Criterion D | Criterion E","criteria_definitions":"The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history | The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places | The place is important because of its aesthetic significance"} ]}